Analysis of III. The Shadow Of Lilith

Christopher John Brennan 1870 (Haymarket, New South Wales) – 1932 (Lewisham, New South Wales)



The tuberose thickens the air: a swoon
lies close on open'd calyx and slipt sheath
thro' all the garden bosom-bound beneath
dense night that hangs, her own perturbing moon:
no star: and heaven and earth, seeking their boon,
meet in this troubled blood whereunder seethe
cravings of darkling bliss whose fumes enwreathe
some rose of rare-reveal'd delight: oh, soon! —
Ay, surely near — the hour consents to bless! —
and nearer yet, all ways of night converge
in that delicious dark between her breasts
whom night and bloom and wayward blood confess,
where all the world's desire is wild to merge
its multitude of single suffering nests.

Cloth'd now with dark alone, O rose and balm,
whence unto world-sear'd youth is healing boon,
what lures the tense dark round thy pulsing calm?
Or does that flood-tide of luxurious noon,
richly distill'd for thy sweet nutriment,
now traitor, hearken to some secret moon.
Eve's wifely guise, her dower that Eden lent,
now limbeck where the enamour'd alchemist
invokes the rarer rose, phantom descent;
thy dewy essence where the suns persist
is alter'd by occult yet natural rite:
among thy leaves it was the night we kiss'd.
Rare ooze of odour drowns our faint delight,
some spilth of love that languishes unshared,
a rose that bleeds unseen, the heart of night;
whose sweetness holds us, wondering, ensnared:
for cunning she, the outcast, to entice
to wake with her, remembering how she fared
in times before our time, when Paradise
shone once, the dew-gem in her heart, and base
betrayal gave her to the malefice
that all thro' time afflicts her lonely face,
and all the mournful widowhood of night
closed round her, and the wilderness of space:
O bleeding rose, alone! O heart of night!

This is of Lilith, by her Hebrew name
Lady of Night: she, in the delicate frame
that was of woman after, did unite
herself with Adam in unblest delight;
who, uncapacious of that dreadful love,
begat on her not majesty, as Jove,
but the worm-brood of terrors unconfest
that chose henceforth, as their avoided nest,
the mire-fed writhen thicket of the mind.
She, monsterward from that embrace declined,
could change her to Chimera and inspire
doubt of his garden-state, exciting higher
the arrowy impulse to dim descried
o'erhuman bliss, as after, on the wide
way of his travail, with enticing strain
and hint of nameless things reveal'd, a bane
haunted, the fabled siren, and was seen
later as Lamia and Melusine,
and whatsoe'er of serpent-wives is feign'd,
or malice of the vampire-witch that drain'd
fresh blood of fresh-born babes, a wicked blast:
faces of fear, beheld along the past
and in the folk's scant fireside lore misread,
of her that is the august and only dread,
close-dwelling, in the house of birth and death,
and closer, in the secrets of our breath -
or love occult, whose smile eludes our sight
in her flung hair that is the starry night


Scheme ABBAAXBACDECDE FAFAGAGGGGGGGGGGHGHICIGIG JJGGKKGGGGXXGGLLXAGGGGGGMMGG
Poetic Form
Metre 01100101 1111010011 1101010101 1111010101 11010011011 10110111 10111111 1111010111 11010100111 0101111101 0101010101 1101010101 11010101111 1101101001 1111011101 1101111101 1101111101 11111101001 10011111 110111101 111011101 11101100 0101011001 1101010101 11010111001 0111110111 1111110101 111111001 0111010111 1101110001 110101101 11100100111 0101101110 1101100101 01010101 1111010101 01010111 1100010011 1101011111 1111010101 10111001001 111101011 011100101 1111101 0110110011 10111101 1111110101 011110101 11110101 1101010001 11110101010 0110111 11110101 1110110101 0111010101 1001010011 10110001 01110111 1101010111 1111110101 101110101 0001110101 10110100101 1100011101 01000101101 11011101101 0011110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 2,894
Words 496
Sentences 10
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 14, 25, 28
Lines Amount 67
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 758
Words per stanza (avg) 165
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 19, 2023

2:33 min read
94

Christopher John Brennan

Christopher John Brennan was an Australian poet, scholar and literary critic. more…

All Christopher John Brennan poems | Christopher John Brennan Books

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