Analysis of Thèlus Wood
I came by night to Thèlus wood,
And though in dark and desperate places
Stubborned with wire and brown with blood
Undaunted April crept and sewed
Her violets in dead men's faces,
And in a soft and snowy shroud
Drew the scarred fields with gentle stitch;
Though in the valley where the ditch
Was hoarse with nettles, blind with mud,
She stroked the golden-headed bud,
And loosed the fern, she dared not here
To touch nor tend this murdered thing;
The wind went wide of it, the year
Upon this breast stopped short of Spring:
Beauty turned back from Thèlus Wood.
From broken brows the dim eyes stared,
Blistered and maimed the wide stumps grinned
From the black mouth of Thèlus bared
In laughter at some monstrous jest.
No creature moved there, weed nor wind.
Huge arms, half-torn from savage breast,
Hung wide, and tangled limbs and faces
Lay, as if giants blind and stark
With violent, with perverse embraces
Groped for each other in the dark.
A moaning rose — not of the wind,
— There was no wind, but hollowly
From its dim bed of mud each tree
Gave forth a sound, till trees and mud
Seemed but a single, sighing mouth,
A wound that spoke with lips uncouth,
And cried to me from Thèlus Wood.
I heard one tree say: 'This was I
Who drew great clouds across the sky
To weep against me.' This one said:
'I made a gloom where love might lie
All day and dream it night, a bed
Secret and soft, the birds' song had
A twilight sound the whole day there.'
One said: 'Last night I shook my hair
Before the mirror of the moon.'
'I saw a corpse to-day,' said one
'That was but buried yester-year.'
And one, the smallest, sweetest thing —
A fair child-tree made never stir,
Dead before God had tended her
In the green nurseries of Spring.
She lay, the loveliest, loneliest,
Among the old and ruined trees,
And at each small and broken wrist
The white flowers grew like bandages.
Then from the ruined churchyard where
Old vaults and graves lay turned and tossed
And earth from earth was shaken bare,
Came murmurings of a tongueless host
That to each ghastly brother said:
'Who raised us from our sleep? Is this
The resurrection of the dead?
Upon our bodies no flesh grows,
No bright blood through our temples springs,
No glory spreads, no trumpet blows,
The air is not white and blind with wings.
And yet dragged up before us lie
The woods of Thèlus at our feet,
And strange hills sentinel the sky,
And where the road went yawns a pit.
The world is finished: let us sleep.
God has forgotten: we shall keep
Here a sweet, safe Eternity.
There is no other end than this,
And this is death, and that is peace.'
But even as they ceased the stones
Were loosed, the earth shook where I stood,
And from far off the crouching guns
Swung slowly round on Thèlus Wood.
Scheme | ABCXBXDDCCXEFEA GXGHIHBJXJIKLCXXA MMNKNXOOXXFEPPEAXXB OXOXNQNRSRSKXMXTTLQXXAXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 111111111 010101010 11100111 01010101 010001110 00010101 10111101 10010101 11110111 11010101 01011111 11111101 01111101 01111111 101111111 11010111 10010111 101111111 01011101 11011111 11111101 110101010 11110101 1100101010 11110001 01011101 111111 11111111 11011101 11010101 01111111 011111111 11111111 11110101 11011111 11011111 11011101 10010111 0110111 11111111 01010101 11011111 1111011 01010101 01111101 10111100 00110011 11011 01010101 01110101 011011100 1101011 11011101 01111101 111011 11110101 111110111 0010101 011010111 111110101 11011101 011110111 01110111 0111111101 01110001 01011101 01110111 11010111 10110100 11110111 01110111 11011101 01011111 01110101 110111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,689 |
Words | 516 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 17, 19, 24 |
Lines Amount | 75 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 534 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 127 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:33 min read
- 92 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Thèlus Wood" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28373/th%C3%A8lus-wood>.
Discuss this Muriel Stuart poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In