Analysis of The Atavist
What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world,
Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen?
Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled,
You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean?
Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom Thorne! home to your evening dress!
Home to your place of power and pride, and the feast that waits for you!
Why do you linger all alone in the splendid emptiness,
Scouring the Land of the Little Sticks on the trail of the caribou?
Why did you fall off the Earth, Tom Thorne, out of our social ken?
What did your deep damnation prove? What was your dark despair?
Oh with the width of a world between, and years to the count of ten,
If they cut out your heart to-night, Tom Thorne, her name would be graven there!
And you fled afar for the thing called Peace, and you thought you would find it here,
In the purple tundras vastly spread, and the mountains whitely piled;
It's a weary quest and a dreary quest, but I think that the end is near;
For they say that the Lord has hidden it in the secret heart of the Wild.
And you know that heart as few men know, and your eyes are fey and deep,
With a "something lost" come welling back from the raw, red dawn of life:
With woe and pain have you greatly lain, till out of abysmal sleep
The soul of the Stone Age leaps in you, alert for the ancient strife.
And if you came to our feast again, with its pomp and glee and glow,
I think you would sit stone-still, Tom Thorne, and see in a daze of dream,
A mad sun goading to frenzied flame the glittering gems of the snow,
And a monster musk-ox bulking black against the blood-red gleam.
I think you would see berg-battling shores, and stammer and halt and stare,
With a sudden sense of the frozen void, serene and vast and still;
And the aching gleam and the hush of dream, and the track of a great white bear,
And the primal lust that surged in you as you sprang to make your kill.
I think you would hear the bull-moose call, and the glutted river roar;
And spy the hosts of the caribou shadow the shining plain;
And feel the pulse of the Silences, and stand elate once more
On the verge of the yawning vastitudes that call to you in vain.
For I think you are one with the stars and the sun, and the wind and the wave and the dew;
And the peaks untrod that yearn to God, and the valleys undefiled;
Men soar with wings, and they bridle kings, but what is it all to you,
Wise in the ways of the wilderness, and strong with the strength of the Wild?
You have spent your life, you have waged your strife where never we play a part;
You have held the throne of the Great Unknown, you have ruled a kingdom vast:
But to-night there's a strange, new trail for you, and you go, O weary heart!
To the place and rest of the Great Unguessed . . . at last, Tom Thorne, at last.
Scheme | ABAB XCXC DEDE XFXF GHGH IJIJ EKEK LMLM CACF NO NO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011110111101 1011011010100111001 1001110100111 11011111111101 111111111111101 1111110010011111 111101010010100 10001101011011010 1111101111110101 11110101111101 1101101010110111 11111111110111101 011011011101111111 001011010010101 101010010111110111 111101110100101101 0111111110111101 1010111011011111 1101111011110101 0110111010110101 01111101011110101 1111111110100111 01110110101001101 00101111010111 11111110010100101 1010110101010101 001010011100110111 0010111011111111 1111101110010101 0101101010101 010110100010111 10110101111101 111111101001001001001 0011111100101 1111011011111111 10011010001101101 11111111111101101 11101101011110101 11110111110111101 101011011111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 2,848 |
Words | 565 |
Sentences | 27 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 55 |
Words per line (avg) | 14 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 201 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 2:50 min read
- 154 Views
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"The Atavist" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32477/the-atavist>.
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