Analysis of Sad Steps
Philip Larkin 1922 (Coventry) – 1985 (Hull)
Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.
Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There’s something laughable about this,
The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)
High and preposterous and separate—
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,
One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare
Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can’t come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.
Scheme | ABA BBA CDC XDC EFE FXE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101111001 1111001101 010101100 11110101 1001000111 110100011 0101101111 1011011101 11011000101 100100010 101101011 11110011 110101011 0100010001 11011111 1001010101 1101111101 111100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 754 |
Words | 117 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 98 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 20 |
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"Sad Steps" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/53684/sad-steps>.
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