Analysis of Poulain The Prisoner
Augusta Davies Webster 1837 (Poole, Dorset) – 1894
BEYOND his silent vault green springs went by,
The river flashed along its open way,
Blithe swallows flitted in their billowy play,
And the sweet lark went quivering up the sky.
With him was stillness and his heart's dumb cry
And darkness of the tomb through hopeless day,
Save that along the wall one single ray
Shifted, through jealous loop-holes, westerly.
One single ray: and where its light could fall
His rusty nail carved saints and angels there,
And warriors, and slim girls with braided hair,
And blossomy boughs, and birds athwart the air.
Rude work, but yet a world. And light for all
Was one slant ray upon a prison wall.
One ray, and in its track hlie lived and wrought,
And in free wideness of the world, I know,
One said, 'Fair sunshine, yet it serves not so,
It needs a tenderer when I shape my thought;'
And, ''Tis too brown and molten in the drought,'
And, ''Tis too wan a greyness in this snow,'
And would have toiled, but wearied and was woe,
While days stole past and had bequeathed him nought.
Maybe in Gisors, round the fortress mead—
Gisors where now, when fair-time brings its press,
They seek the prisoner's tower to gaze and guess
And love the work he made in loneliness—
One cursed the gloom, and died without a deed,
The while he carved where his one ray could lead.
'Oh loneliness! oh darkness!' so we wail,
Crying to life to give we know not what,
The hope not come, the ecstasy forgot,
The things we should have had and, needing, fail,
Nor know what thing it was for which we ail,
And, like tired travellers to an unknown spot,
Pass listless, noting only 'Yet 'tis not,'
And count the ended day an empty tale.
Ah me! to linger on in dim repose
And feel the numbness over hand and thought,
And feel the silence in the heart, that grows.
Ah me! to have forgot the hope we sought.
One ray of light, and a soul lived and wrought,
And on the prison walls a message rose.
Scheme | ABBAABBX CDDDCC EFFEXFFE GHHXGX IXJIIJJI KEKEEK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111011111 0101011101 11010111 00111100101 1111001111 0101011101 1101011101 1011011100 1101011111 1101110101 01000111101 011010101 1111010111 1111010101 1100111101 001110111 111111111 110111111 0111010001 011101011 0111110011 1111010111 100110101 111111111 110100101101 0101110100 1101010101 0111111111 1100110111 1011111111 0111010001 0111110101 1111111111 011010011011 1101010111 0101011101 1111010101 0101010101 0101000111 1111010111 1111001101 0101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,877 |
Words | 363 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6, 8, 6, 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 244 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 59 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:48 min read
- 72 Views
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"Poulain The Prisoner" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4103/poulain-the-prisoner>.
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