Analysis of Niobe
Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)
How like the sky she bends above her child,
One with the great horizon of her pain!
No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild,
No weeping cloud, no momentary rain,
Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief,
That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb.
She stoops in pity above the labouring earth,
Knowing how fond, how brief
Is all its hope, past, present, and to come,
She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth.
Through that fair face the whole dark universe
Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro’ one white flower;
And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curse
The gods, but cannot die before their hour,
Find utterance in her beauty. That fair head
Bows over all earth’s graves. It was her cry
Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways
With children’s blood ran red.
Her silence towers to Silences on high;
And, in her face, the whole earth’s anguish prays.
It is the pity, the pity of human love
That strains her face, upturned to meet the doom,
And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove
Frozen upon its nest, ne’er to resume
Its happy breathing o’er the golden brace
That she must shield till death. Death, death alone
Can break the anguished horror of that spell.
The sorrow on her face
Is sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone;
She knows all, all, that Life and Time can tell.
Ah, yet, her woman’s love, so vast, so tender,
Her woman’s body, hurt by every dart,
Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slender
Soft frightened child beneath her mighty heart.
She is all one mute immortal cry, one brief
Infinite pang of such victorious pain
That she transcends the heavens and bows them down!
The majesty of grief
Is hers, and her dominion must remain
Eternal. Grief alone can wear that crown.
Scheme | ABABCDECDE FGFGHIJHIJ KLKLMNOMNO GPGPCBQCBQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1101110101 1101010101 11110111111 110111001 11010110101 1101010101 1101001011 101111 1111110011 110100110111 111101110 11011111110 01111111 01110101110 11000010111 1101111101 1101010101 110111 01010110011 0001011101 110100101101 110111101 0011010111 1001111101 1101010101 1111111101 1101010111 010101 1101011111 1111110111 1101111110 0110111001 10010111010 1101010101 11111010111 10011101001 11010100111 010011 1000010101 0101011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,750 |
Words | 314 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 10, 10, 10 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 337 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 78 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:34 min read
- 81 Views
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"Niobe" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1157/niobe>.
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