Analysis of The Bankrupt Peace-Maker
I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room.
The smoke formed the giant frog-cat of my doom.
His web feet left dreadful slime tracks on the floor.
He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door.
He sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair.
He looked through my heart to the mud that was there.
Like a black-mailer hating his victim he spoke:
"When I see all your squirming I laugh till I choke
Singing of peace. Railing at battle.
Soothing a handful with saccharine prattle.
All the millions of earth have voted for fight.
You are voting for talk, with hands lily white."
He leaped to the floor, then grew seven feet high,
Beautiful, terrible, scorn in his eye:
The Devil Eternal, Apollo grown old,
With beard of bright silver and garments of gold.
"What will you do to end war for good?
Will you stand by the book-case, be nailed to the wood?"
I stretched out my arms. He drove the nails deep,
Silently, coolly. The house was asleep,
I hung for three years, forbidden to die.
I seemed but a shadow the servants passed by.
At the end of the time with hot irons he returned.
"The Quitter Sublime" on my bosom he burned.
As he seared me he hissed: "You are wearing away.
The good angels tell me you leave them today.
You want to come down from the nails in the door.
The victor must hang there three hundred years more.
If any prig-saint would outvote all mankind
He must use an immortally resolute mind.
Think what the saints of Benares endure,
Through infinite birthpangs their courage is sure.
Self-tortured, self-ruled, they build their powers high,
Until they are gods, overmaster the sky."
Then he pulled out the nails. He shouted "Come in."
To heal me there stepped in a lady of sin.
Her hand was in mine. We walked in the sun.
She said: "Now forget them, the Saxon and Hun.
You are dreary and aged and silly and weak.
Let us smell the sweet groves. Let the summertime speak."
We walked to the river. We swam there in state.
I was a serpent. She was my mate.
I forgot in the marsh, as I tumbled about,
That trial in my room, where I did not hold out.
Since I was a serpent, my mate seemed to me
As a mermaiden seems to a fisher at sea,
Or a whisky soaked girl to a whisky soaked king.
I woke. She had turned to a ravening thing
On the table — a buzzard with leperous head.
She tore up my rhymes and my drawings. She said:
"I am your own cheap bankrupt soul.
Will you die for the nations, making them whole?
We joy in the swamp and here we are gay.
Will you bring your fine peace to the nations today?"
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJGGKKLLBBMMNNGGOOPPQQRRSSTTUUVVWWLL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11001101101 01101011111 11111011101 111001111101 11101011011 11111101111 101101011011 111111011111 101110110 100111010 10101111011 11101111101 11101111011 1001001011 01001001011 11111001011 111111111 111101111101 1111111011 1001001101 1111110011 1110101011 1011011110101 01001111011 111111111001 01101111101 11111101001 01011111011 11011101111 11111101 11011101 1100111011 11011111101 01111101 11110111010 11111001011 0110111001 11101101001 11100101001 11101110101 11101011101 110101111 101001111001 110011111111 11101011111 1011101011 101011101011 111111011 1010010111 11111011011 11111101 11110101011 1100101111 111111101001 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,473 |
Words | 489 |
Sentences | 50 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 54 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,934 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 481 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 2:25 min read
- 144 Views
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"The Bankrupt Peace-Maker" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37342/the-bankrupt-peace-maker>.
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