Analysis of To One in Allienation
Arthur Symons 1865 (Milford Haven) – 1945
I
Last night I saw you decked to meet
The coming of those most reluctant feet:
The little bonnet that you wear
When you would fain, for his sake, be more fair;
The primrose ribbons that so grace
The perfect pallor of your face;
The dark gown folded back about the throat,
And folds of lacework that denote
All that beneath them, just beneath them, lies:
God, for his eyes!
So the man came and took you; and we lay
So near and yet so far away,
You in his arms, awake for joy, and I
Awake for very misery,
Cursing a sleepless brain that would but scrawl
Your image on the aching wall,
That would but pang me with the sense
Of that most sweet accursed violence
Of lovers' hands that weary to caress
(Those hands!) your unforbidden loveliness.
And with the dawn that vision came again
To an unrested and recurrent brain:
To think your body, warm and white,
Lay in his arms all night;
That it was given him to surprise,
With those unhallowed eyes,
The secrets of your beauty, hid from me,
That I may never (may I never?) see:
I who adore you, he who finds in you
(Poor child!) a half-forgotten point of view.
II
As I lay on the stranger's bed,
And clasped the stranger-woman I had hired,
Desiring only memory dead
Of all that I had once desired;
It was then that I wholly knew
How dearly I had loved you, my lost friend;
While I am I, and you are you,
How I must love you to the end.
For I lay in her arms awake,
Awake and cursing the indifferent night,
That ebbed so slowly, for your sake,
My heart's desire, my soul's delight;
For I lay in her arms awake,
Awake in such a solitude of shame,
That when I kissed her, for your sake,
My lips were sobbing on your name.
Scheme | abbccddeeff ggahiixxxd xxjjffhhkkalmlm knkn Ojoj Opop |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 11111111 0101110101 01010111 1111111111 0110111 0011111 0111010101 0111101 1101110111 1111 1011011011 11011101 1011011101 01110100 1001011111 11010101 11111101 11111100 1101110101 11111 0101110101 11100101 11110101 101111 111101101 1111 0101110111 1111011101 1101111101 1101010111 1 11110101 01010101110 0100101001 111111010 11111101 1101111111 11110111 11111101 11100101 0101000101 110110111 110101101 11100101 010101011 11110111 11010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,627 |
Words | 328 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 10, 15, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 213 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:39 min read
- 62 Views
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"To One in Allienation" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4030/to-one-in-allienation>.
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