Analysis of Spasskoe
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
In Spasskoe, unforgettable September sheds its leaves.
Isn’t it time to close up the summer-house?
Echo traps the thudding of axe-blows in the trees,
and, past the fence, barters a herd-boy’s shout.
Last night the marsh by the park shivered, too.
The moment the sun rises it vanishes.
The bluebell can’t drink the rheumatic dew,
and a dirty lilac stain soils the birches.
The wood’s downcast. It wants to sleep, as well,
under the snow, in the deep quiet of the bear’s den.
The park, gaping, framed by tree-trunks stands still,
in neat obituary-columns, its edges blackened.
Has the birch copse stopped fading, staining,
its shade more watery still, and growing thin?
And again, you’re, fifteen – it’s still complaining –
again – ‘oh child, oh, what shall we do with them?’
They’re already so many it’s time to stop playing.
They’re – birds in the bushes, mushrooms in the trees.
Already we’ve veiled our horizon with them, shrouding
each other’s landscape with fog-bound mysteries.
The comic, on the night of his death, typhus-stricken,
hears a peal: it’s Homeric laughter from the box.
Today in Spasskoe, the same grief, in hallucination,
stares, from the road, at a house of weathered logs.
Scheme | AXBX CXCA XXXX DXDX DBDB EXEX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (33%) |
Metre | 010100010111 1111110101 10101111001 010110111 1101101101 01001101100 011100101 001011101 011111111 1001001101011 0110111111 0101001011010 101111010 11110010101 00110111010 01111111111 1010110111110 11001010001 01011100101110 1101111100 0101011111010 101101010101 010101100010 11011011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,216 |
Words | 204 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 153 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 101 Views
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"Spasskoe" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4536/spasskoe>.
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