Analysis of Broken Vase

Rene Francois Armand Prudhomme 1839 (Paris) – 1907 (Châtenay-Malabry)



The vase where this verbena is dying
was cracked by a blow from a fan.
It must have barely brushed it,
for it made no sound.

But the slight wound,
biting into the crystal day by day,
surely, invisibly crept
slowly all around it.

The clear water leaked out drop by drop.
The flowers' sap was exhausted.
Still no one suspected anything.
Don't touch! It's broken.

Thus often does the hand we love,
barely touching the heart, wound it.
Then the heart cracks by itself
and the flower of its love dies.

Still intact in the eyes of the world,
it feels its wound, narrow and deep,
grow and softly cry.
It's broken. Don't touch!


Scheme AXBC CXXB XXAX XBXX XXXX
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Etheree  (20%)
Metre 0111010110 11101101 1111011 11111 1011 1001010111 1011 101011 011011111 01011010 11101010 11110 11010111 10100111 1011101 00101111 101001101 11111001 10101 11011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 608
Words 117
Sentences 14
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 96
Words per stanza (avg) 23
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

36 sec read
131

Rene Francois Armand Prudhomme

René François Armand (Sully) Prudhomme was a French poet and essayist.  more…

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