Analysis of Sons of Belial
Lola Ridge 1873 – 1941
We are old,
Old as song.
Before Rome was
Or Cyrene.
Mad nights knew us
And old men's wives.
We knew who spilled the sacred oil
For young-gold harlots of the town….
We knew where the peacocks went
And the white doe for sacrifice.
II
We were the Sons of Belial.
One black night
Centuries ago
We beat at a door
In Gilead….
We took the Levite's concubine
We plucked her hands from off the door….
We choked the cry into her throat
And stuck the stars among her hair….
We glimpsed the madly swaying stars
Between the rhythms of her hair
And all our mute and separate strings
Swelled in a raging symphony….
Our blood sang paeans
All that night
Till dawn fell like a wounded swan
Upon the fields of Gilead.
III
We are old….
Old as song….
We are dumb song.
(Epics tingled
In our blood
When we haled Hypatia
Over the stones
In Alexandria.)
Could we loose
The wild rhythms clinched in us….
March in bands of troubadours….
We would be of gentle mood.
When Christ healed us
Who were dumb—
When he freed our shut-in song—
We strewed green palms
At his pale feet…
We sang hosannas
In Jerusalem.
And all our fumbling voices blent
In a brief white harmony.
(But a mightier song
Was in us pent
When we nailed Christ
To a four-armed tree.)
IV
We are young.
When we rise up with singing roots,
(Warm rains washing
Gutters of Berlin
Where we stamped Rosa… Luxemburg
On a night in spring.)
Rhythms skurry in our blood.
Little nimble rats of song
In our feet run crazily
And all is dust… we trample… on.
Mad nights when we make ritual
(Feet running before the sleuth-light…
And the smell of burnt flesh
By a flame-ringed hut
In Missouri,
Sweet as on Rome's pyre….)
We make ropes do rigadoons
With copper feet that jig on air….
We are the Mob….
Old as song.
Tyre knew us
And Israel.
Scheme | ABcdexfdgxh fixjkdjxlxlxdxidkh ABbamnxxxecxeobxxcoadbgxpx xxqdbqmbpdrinxpxclxBer |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111 111 0111 11 1111 0111 11110101 1111101 111011 0011110 1 100111 111 10001 11101 001 110110 11011101 11010101 01010101 11010101 01010101 011010101 10010100 101110 111 11110101 0101101 1 111 111 1111 101 0101 1111 1001 00100 111 0110101 10111 1111101 1111 101 11110101 1111 1111 111 00100 0110100101 0011100 101001 1011 1111 10111 1 111 11111101 1110 10101 111101 10101 1010101 1010111 01011100 01111101 11111100 11001011 001111 10111 0010 111110 11111 11011111 1101 111 111 0100 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,877 |
Words | 339 |
Sentences | 31 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 18, 26, 22 |
Lines Amount | 77 |
Letters per line (avg) | 18 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 340 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 83 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:42 min read
- 74 Views
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"Sons of Belial" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25924/sons-of-belial>.
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