Analysis of Southern Outpost ... Lachish, Israel, 587 BCE
Omniscient eyes upon us seem leering
Out from a darkness that dreadfully grows—
A deluge of darkness, dreadless, fearless,
Swallowing all as it easily goes.
This darkness fills the empyreal heights,
Its quietude the Negev's lonely plains.
Distant jackals alone are heard howling
Nocturnal omens and ghostly refrains.
The signal fires, once burning, now fade
Into the void of imperious night,
And all in oblivion's broad-sweeping raid
Fall to the Chaldean's rapacious might.
| Scheme | ABXBXCAC DEDE |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 010101111 1101011001 010110110 1001111001 1101011 1101101 101011110 0101001001 0101011011 0101101001 01011101 11010101 |
| Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
| Characters | 477 |
| Words | 80 |
| Sentences | 4 |
| Stanzas | 2 |
| Stanza Lengths | 8, 4 |
| Lines Amount | 12 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
| Words per line (avg) | 6 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 193 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
About this poem
This poem is about the Babylonian [Chaldean] conquest of what we today refer to as the Middle East. In the 6th century BCE, a brutal and ineluctable fate hung over the entire region—all was hopeless, nothing could stop it, and real people died. I was hoping, in this short poem, to capture a thread of the desperateness and dread of a situation I couldn't imagine.
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Written on November 14, 2020
Submitted by Vixility on August 30, 2022
Modified on March 09, 2023
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"Southern Outpost ... Lachish, Israel, 587 BCE" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/136675/southern-outpost-...-lachish%2C-israel%2C-587-bce>.
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