Analysis of La Vie de Boheme
Amy Lowell 1874 (Brookline) – 1925 (Brookline)
Alone, I whet my soul against the keen
Unwrinkled sky, with its long stretching blue.
I polish it with sunlight and pale dew,
And damascene it with young blowing leaves.
Into the handle of my life I set
Sprigs of mignonette
And periwinkle,
Twisted into sheaves.
The colors laugh and twinkle.
Twined bands of roadways, liquid in the sheen
Of street lamps and the ruby shine of cabs,
Glisten for my delight all down its length;
And there are sudden sparks
Of morning ripplings over tree-fluttered pools.
My soul is fretted full of gleams and darks,
Pulsing and still.
Smooth-edged, untarnished, girded in my soul
I walk the world.
But in its narrow alleys,
The low-hung dust-thick valleys
Where the mob shuffles its empty tread,
My soul is blunted against dullard wits,
Smeared with sick juices,
Nicked impotent for other than low uses.
Its arabesques and sparkling subtleties
Crusted to grey, and all its changing surfaces
Spread with unpalpitant monotonies.
I re-create myself upon the polished sky:
A honing-strop above converging roofs.
The patterns show again, like buried proofs
Of old, lost empires bursting on the eye
In hieroglyphed and graven splendor.
The whirling winds brush past my head,
And prodigal once more, a reckless spender
Of disregarded beauty, a defender
Of undesired faiths,
walk the world.
Scheme | ABBCDDBCXAXXXXCXXE FFGXHHFHC IJJIKGKKXE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111110101 11111101 110111011 01111101 0101011111 111 01 10011 0101010 111110001 1110010111 1011011111 011101 1101101101 1111011101 1001 1111011 1101 1011010 0111110 101101101 111100111 11110 11001101110 11010100 101101110100 1111 11011010101 0101010101 0101011101 11110010101 0101010 01011111 01001101010 1010100010 111 101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,285 |
Words | 219 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 18, 9, 10 |
Lines Amount | 37 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 352 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 72 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 110 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"La Vie de Boheme" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2245/la-vie-de-boheme>.
Discuss this Amy Lowell 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