Analysis of Hellenistics
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
I look at the Greek-derived design that nourished my infancy
this Wedgwood copy of the Portland vase:
Someone had given it to my father my eyes at five years old
used to devour it by the hour.
I look at a Greek coin, four-drachma piece struck by Lysimachus:
young Alexander's head
With the horns of Ammon and brave brow-ridges, the bright
pride and immortal youth and wild sensitiveness.
I think of Achilles, Sappho, the Nike. I think of those mercenaries
who marched in the heart of Asia
And lived to salute the sea: the lean faces like lance-heads, the
grace of panthers. The dull welter of Asia.
I am past childhood, I look at this ocean and the fishing birds, the
streaming skerries, the shining water,
The foam-heads, the exultant dawn-light going west, the pelicans,
their huge wings half folded, plunging like stones.
Whatever it is catches my heart in its hands, whatever it is makes
me shudder with love
And painful joy and the tears prickle ... the Greeks were not
its inventors. The Greeks were not the inventors
Of shining clarity and jewel-sharp form and the beauty of God.
He was free with men before the Greeks came:
He is here naked on the shining water. Every eye that has a
man's nerves behind it has known him.
II
I think of the dull welter of Asia. I think of squalid savages along
the Congo: the natural
Condition of man, that makes one say of all beasts 'They are
not contemptible. Man is contemptible.' I see
The squalor of our own frost-bitten forefathers. I will praise the
Greeks for having pared down the shame of three vices
Natural to man and no other animal, cruelty and filth and superstition,
grained in man's making.
III
The age darkens, Europe mixes her cups of death, all the little
Caesars fidget on their thrones,
The old wound opens its clotted mouth to ask for new wounds.
Men will fight through; men have tough hearts.
Men will fight through to the autumn flowering and ordered
prosperity. They will lift their heads in the great cities
Of the empire and say: 'Freedom? Freedom was a fire. We are
well quit of freedom, we have found prosperity.'
They will say, 'Where now are the evil prophets?' Thus for a
time in the age's afterglow, the sterile time;
But the wounds drain, and freedom has died, slowly the machines
break down, slowly the wilderness returns.
IV
Oh distant future children going down to the foot of the mountain,
the new barbarism, the night of time,
Mourn your own dead if you remember them, but not for civilization,
not for our scuttled futilities.
You are saved from being little entrails feeding large brains, you
are saved from being little empty bundles of enjoyment,
You are not to be fractional supported people but complete men;
you will guard your own heads, you will have proud eyes.
You will stand among the spears when you meet; life will be
lovely and terrible again, great and in earnest;
You will know hardship, hunger and violence: these are not the
evils: what power can save you from the real evils
Of barbarism? What poet will be born to tell you to hate cruelty
and filth? What prophet will warn you
When the witch-doctors begin dancing, or if any man says 'I
am a priest,' to kill them with spears?
Scheme | AXXB AXXX CDDD DBXX XEXX XXDX FXGHA DXIX FGAXX XCHA DJXX EIJIA KXXX AXDX AKFX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110101011101100 111010101 111011110111111 1101011010 1110111101111 10101 1011100111001 100101011000 11101010101111100 11001110 011010101101110 11100110110 1111111110001010 10101010 0110010111010100 1111101011 1011101101110111 11011 010100110101 101001010010 11010001011001011 1111101011 111101010101001110 11011111 1 11101101101111010001 0100100 01011111111111 1010011010011 0101101110101110 111011011110 10011011010010010010 10110 1 011101001111010 1010111 01110110111111 11111111 11111010100010 01001111100110 10100011010101011 111101110100 11111101010110 10010100101 10110101110001 1110010001 1 11010101011011010 011000111 11111101011110010 1110101 111110101010111 111101010101010 11111100010101011 11111111111 1110101111111 1001000110010 111101001001110 1011011110110 11001101111111110 01110111 1011001101110111 10111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 3,125 |
Words | 574 |
Sentences | 30 |
Stanzas | 15 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 63 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 167 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:52 min read
- 128 Views
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"Hellenistics" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32806/hellenistics>.
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