Analysis of July
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
A ghost is roaming through the building,
And shadows in the attic browse;
Persistently intent on mischief
A goblin roams about the house.
He gets into your way, he fusses,
You hear his footsteps overhead,
He tears the napkin off the table
And creeps in slippers to the bed.
With feet unwiped he rushes headlong
On gusts of draught into the hall
And whirls the curtain, like a dancer,
Towards the ceiling, up the wall.
Who is this silly mischief-maker,
This phantom and this double-face?
He is our guest, our summer lodger,
Who spends with us his holidays.
Our house is taken in possession
By him, while he enjoys a rest.
July, with summer air and thunder-
He is our temporary guest.
July, who scatters from his pockets
The fluff of blow-balls in a cloud,
Who enters through the open window,
Who chatters to himself aloud,
Unkempt, untidy, absent-minded,
Soaked through with smell of dill and rye,
With linden-blossom, grass and beet-leaves,
The meadow-scented month July.
Scheme | XXXX XAXA XBCB CXCX XDCD XEXE XFXF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (71%) |
Metre | 011101010 0100101 010001110 01010101 110111110 1111101 110101010 01010101 1111101 11110101 010101010 01010101 111101010 11001101 1110110101 1111110 1011100010 11110101 11101010 11101001 1111110 01111001 110101010 1110101 010101010 11111101 110101011 011011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 952 |
Words | 168 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 110 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 149 Views
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"July" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4509/july>.
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