Analysis of The Breaking Point
Stephen Vincent Benet 1898 (Bethlehem) – 1943 (New York City)
It was not when temptation came,
Swiftly and blastingly as flame,
And seared me white with burning scars;
When I stood up for age-long wars
And held the very Fiend at grips;
When all my mutinous body rose
To range itself beside my foes,
And, like a greyhound in the slips,
The Beast that dwells within me roared,
Lunging and straining at his cord. . . .
For all the blusterings of Hell,
It was not then I slipped and fell;
For all the storm, for all the hate,
I kept my soul inviolate!
But when the fight was fought and won,
And there was Peace as still as Death
On everything beneath the sun.
Just as I started to draw breath,
And yawn, and stretch, and pat myself,
-- The grass began to whisper things --
And every tree became an elf,
That grinned and chuckled counsellings:
Birds, beasts, one thing alone they said,
Beating and dinning at my head.
I could not fly. I could not shun it.
Slimily twisting, slow and blind,
It crept and crept into my mind.
Whispered and shouted, sneered and laughed,
Screamed out until my brain was daft. . . .
One snaky word, "What if you'd done it?"
And I began to think . . .
Ah, well,
What matter how I slipped and fell?
Or you, you gutter-searcher say!
Tell where you found me yesterday!
Scheme | AABXCDDCEEFFXG HIHIJXJBKKGLLMMG XFFNN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11110101 100111 01111101 11111111 01010111 111100101 11010111 0101001 01110111 10010111 110111 11111101 11011101 11110100 11011101 01111111 1100101 11110111 0101011 01011101 010010111 110101 11110111 10010111 111111111 110101 11010111 10010101 11011111 11111111 010111 11 11011101 11110101 1111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,233 |
Words | 228 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 16, 5 |
Lines Amount | 35 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 311 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 78 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 120 Views
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"The Breaking Point" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35814/the-breaking-point>.
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