French Nocturne (Monchy-Le-Preux)
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
Long leagues on either hand the trenches spread
And all is still; now even this gross line
Drinks in the frosty silences divine
The pale, green moon is riding overhead.
The jaws of a sacked village, stark and grim;
Out on the ridge have swallowed up the sun,
And in one angry streak his blood has run
To left and right along the horizon dim.
There comes a buzzing plane: and now, it seems
Flies straight into the moon. Lo! where he steers
Across the pallid globe and surely nears
In that white land some harbour of dear dreams!
False mocking fancy! Once I too could dream,
Who now can only see with vulgar eye
That he’s no nearer to the moon than I
And she’s a stone that catches the sun’s beam.
What call have I to dream of anything?
I am a wolf. Back to the world again,
And speech of fellow-brutes that once were men
Our throats can bark for slaughter: cannot sing.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 52 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EFFE GHHG IJJI |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 863 |
Words | 168 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"French Nocturne (Monchy-Le-Preux)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Sep. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/6936/french-nocturne-(monchy-le-preux)>.
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