Analysis of Fairmount
How calm the sound of snow that's falling
Soft upon these lonely stones—
As if the north winds now were calling
Sleeping ghosts from restless bones.
Some think this yard of graves as eerie,
Filled with silence and with woes:
Where souls departed wander weary,
Chained to earth and seen by crows.
I've seen some come with flowers weeping,
Doubting God as they lament;
While others deemed the dead as sleeping,
Waiting for the Lord's advent.
And some would do the most appalling—
Cracking headstones, tagging hate.
Yet still the snow would be there falling,
Falling calmly on our fate.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD AEAE AFAF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110111110 1011101 110111010 1011101 111111110 1110011 110101010 1110111 111111010 1011101 110101110 101011 011101010 101101 110111110 10101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 630 |
Words | 122 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 117 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
About this poem
I was home and the weather outside produced thick flakes of slowly descending snow. It was very peaceful. For some reason or another I was thinking about Fairmount, one of Denver's largest cemeteries, and one of its oldest. The mood of the moment felt very serene and conducive to writing, and so I started with a line about descending snow which wove itself into a poem about a graveyard and death's inevitablity.
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"Fairmount" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 Dec. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/164170/fairmount>.
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