Analysis of Picture-Show

Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)



And still they come and go: and this is all I know—
That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show,
Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way,
With glad or grievous hearts I’ll never understand
Because Time spins so fast, and they’ve no time to stay
Beyond the moment’s gesture of a lifted hand.

And still, between the shadow and the blinding flame,
The brave despair of men flings onward, ever the same
As in those doom-lit years that wait them, and have been...
And life is just the picture dancing on a screen.


Scheme AABCBC DDXX
Poetic Form
Metre 011101011111 110111110101 111101010111 11110111001 011111011111 010101010101 01010100101 0101111101001 101111111011 011101010101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 541
Words 99
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 4
Lines Amount 10
Letters per line (avg) 41
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 206
Words per stanza (avg) 49
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

29 sec read
152

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an eminent English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy". more…

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