Analysis of When London Calls
They leave us - artists, singers, all -
When London calls aloud,
Commanding to her Festival
The gifted crowd.
She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,
Sad, weary, cruel, grand;
Her crown imperial gleams with gems
From many a land.
From overseas, and far away,
Come crowded ships and ships -
Grim-faced she gazes on them; yea,
With scornful lips.
The garden of the earth is wide;
Its rarest blooms she picks
To deck her board, this haggard-eyed
Imperatrix.
Sad, sad is she, and yearns for mirth;
With voice of golden guile
She lures men from the ends of earth
To make her smile.
The student of wild human ways
In wild new lands; the sage
With new great thoughts; the bard whose lays
Bring youth to age;
The painter young whose pictures shine
With colours magical;
The singer with the voice divine -
She lures them all.
But all their new is old to her
Who bore the Anakim;
She gives them gold or Charon's fare
As suits her whim.
Crowned Ogress - old, and sad, and wise -
She sits with painted face
And hard, imperious, cruel eyes
In her high place.
To him who for her pleasure lives,
And makes her wish his goal,
A rich Tarpeian gift she gives -
That slays his soul.
The story-teller from the Isles
Upon the Empire's rim,
With smiles she welcomes - and her smiles
Are death to him.
For Her, whose pleasure is her law,
In vain the shy heart bleeds -
The Genius with the Iron jaw
Alone succeeds.
And when the Poet's lays grow bland,
And urbanised, and prim -
She stretches forth a jewelled hand
And strangles him.
She sits beside the ship-choked Thames
With Sphinx-like lips apart -
Mistress of many diadems -
Death in her heart!
Scheme | abcb Dede fgfg hxhd ijij klkl mcma xnxn opop qrqr snsn tutu enen Dvdv |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (93%) |
Metre | 11110101 110101 01010100 0101 11010111 110101 010100111 11001 11010101 110101 11110111 1101 01010111 110111 11011101 1 11110111 111101 11110111 1101 01011101 011101 11110111 1111 01011101 11100 01010101 1111 11111110 1101 1111111 1101 11010101 111101 010100101 0011 11110101 010111 011111 1111 01010101 0101001 11110001 1111 10110101 010111 01010101 0101 01010111 0101 1101011 011 11010111 111101 101101 1001 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,661 |
Words | 303 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 90 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:31 min read
- 37 Views
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"When London Calls" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37554/when-london-calls>.
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