Analysis of The Flame
Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)
‘Tis not a game that plays at mates and mating,
Provençe knew;
'Tis not a game of barter, lands and houses,
Provençe knew.
We who are wise beyond your dream of wisdom,
Drink our immortal moments; we 'pass through'.
We have gone forth beyond your bonds and borders,
Provençe knew;
And all the tales of Oisin say but this:
That man doth pass the net of days and hours.
Where time is shrivelled down to time's seed corn
We of the Ever-living, in that light
Meet through our veils and whisper, and of love.
O smoke and shadow of a darkling world,
These, and the rest, and all the rest we knew.
'Tis not a game that plays at mates and mating,
'Tis not a game of barter, lands and houses,
'Tis not 4of days and nights' and troubling years,
Of cheeks grown sunken and glad hair gone gray;
There is the subtler music, the clear light
Where time burns back about th' eternal embers.
We are not shut from all the thousand heavens:
Lo, there are many gods whom we have seen,
Folk of unearthly fashion, places splendid,
Bulwarks of beryl and of chrysoprase.
Sapphire Benacus, in thy mists and thee
Nature herself's turned metaphysical,
Who can look on that blue and not believe?
Thou hooded opal, thou eternal pearl,
O thou dark secret with a shimmering floor,
Through all thy various mood I know thee mine;
If I have merged my soul, or utterly
Am solved and bound in, through aught here on earth,
There canst thou find me, O thou anxious thou,
Who call’st about my gates for some lost me;
I say my soul flowed back, became translucent.
Search not my lips, O Love, let go my hands,
This thing that moves as man is no more mortal.
If thou hast seen my shade sans character,
If thou hast seen that mirror of all moments,
That glass to all things that o'ershadow it,
Call not that mirror me, for I have slipped
Your grasp, I have eluded.
Scheme | ABCBxbdBxdxex xbACxxedxxxc fgx xxxfxxfxxgxxxxx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011111010 1011 11011101010 1011 11110111110 11001010111 11110111010 1011 010111111 11110111010 111111111 1101010011 11101010011 11011011 1001010111 11011111010 11011101010 11110101001 1111001111 11010010011 1111011101010 11111101010 1111011111 11010101010 1110011 100101101 10110100 1111110101 1101010101 11110101001 11110011111 1111111100 1101011111 1111111101 1101111111 11111101010 1111111111 11111111110 1111111100 11111101110 11111111 1111011111 1111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,795 |
Words | 343 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 13, 12, 3, 15 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 352 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 85 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 1:43 min read
- 111 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Flame" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13375/the-flame>.
Discuss this Ezra Pound poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In