Analysis of The Chorus of Old Men in Aegus
Ye gods that have a home beyond the world,
Ye that have eyes for all man’s agony,
Ye that have seen this woe that we have seen,—
Look with a just regard,
And with an even grace,
Here on the shattered corpse of a shattered king,
Here on a suffering world where men grow old
And wander like sad shadows till, at last,
Out of the flare of life,
Out of the whirl of years,
Into the mist they go,
Into the mist of death.
O shades of you that loved him long before
The cruel threads of that black sail were spun,
May loyal arms and ancient welcomings
Receive him once again
Who now no longer moves
Here in this flickering dance of changing days,
Where a battle is lost and won for a withered wreath,
And the black master Death is over all
To chill with his approach,
To level with his touch,
The reigning strength of youth,
The fluttered heart of age.
Woe for the fateful day when Delphi’s word was lost—
Woe for the loveless prince of Æthra’s line!
Woe for a father’s tears and the curse of a king’s release—
Woe for the wings of pride and the shafts of doom!
And thou, the saddest wind
That ever blew from Crete,
Sing the fell tidings back to that thrice unhappy ship!—
Sing to the western flame,
Sing to the dying foam.
A dirge for the sundered years and a dirge for the years to be!
Better his end had been as the end of a cloudless day,
Bright, by the word of Zeus, with a golden star,
Wrought of a golden fame, and flung to the central sky,
To gleam on a stormless tomb for evermore:—
Whether or not there fell
To the touch of an alien hand
The sheen of his purple robe and the shine of his diadem,
Better his end had been
To die as an old man dies,—
But the fates are ever the fates, and a crown is ever a crown.
Scheme | XAXXBXXXXXXX CXBXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXA XXXCXXXXXX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111010101 1111111100 1111111111 110101 011101 11010110101 11010011111 010111111 110111 110111 010111 010111 1111111101 0101111101 11010101 011101 111101 10110011101 1010110110101 0011011101 111101 110111 010111 010111 11010111111 110101111 11010100110101 11011100111 010101 110111 1011011110101 110101 110101 01101100110111 10111110110101 11011110101 1101010110101 111011110 101111 101111001 01111010011110 101111 1111111 1011100100111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,735 |
Words | 347 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 12, 10, 10 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 331 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 85 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:44 min read
- 119 Views
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"The Chorus of Old Men in Aegus" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10036/the-chorus-of-old-men-in-aegus>.
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