Analysis of The Linden Avenue
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
A house of unimagined beauty
Is set in parkland, cool and dark;
Gates with an arch; then meadows, hillocks,
And oats and woods beyond the park.
Here, with their crowns each other hiding,
Enormous linden trees engage
In dusky, quiet celebration
Of their two hundred years of age.
And underneath their vaulted branches,
Across the regularly drawn
Symmetric avenues, grow flowers
In flower-beds upon a lawn.
Beneath the trees, on sandy pathways,
Not one bright spot relieves the dark,
Save-like an opening in a tunnel-
The distant entrance of the park.
But now the blossom-time is starting,
The walled-in linden trees reveal
And spread about within their shadow
Their irresistible appeal.
The visitors, in summer clothing,
While walking on the crunchy sand,
Breathe in unfathomable fragrance
Which only bees can understand.
This gripping scent is theme and subject,
Whereas-however well they look-
The flower-beds, the lawn, the garden,
Are but the cover of a book.
The clustered, wax-bespattered flowers
On massive trees, sedate and old,
Lit up by raindrops, burn and sparkle
Above the mansion they enfold.
Scheme | XABA CDED BFBF BAGA CHXH CIBI XJEJ BKGK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 01101010 1101101 1111111 01010101 111111010 01010101 0110010 11110111 00111010 01010001 110110 01010101 01011101 11110101 1111000010 01010101 110101110 01010101 01010111 1010001 010001010 11010101 100100010 1101101 110111001 0110111 010101010 11010101 0101110 11010101 11111010 01010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,081 |
Words | 179 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 111 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 53 sec read
- 111 Views
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"The Linden Avenue" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4548/the-linden-avenue>.
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