Analysis of Interlude: The Window And The Hearth

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



Twice now that lucid fiction of the pane
dissolves, the sphere that winter's crystal bane
still-charm'd to glass the sad metempsychose
and futile ages of the suffering rose —
what, in its halt, the weary mood might show.
Earth stirs in me that stirs with roots below,
and distant nerves shrink with the lilac mist
of perfume blossom'd round the lure that, kist,
is known hard burn o'erflaked and cruel sting.
I would this old illusion of the spring
might perish once with all her airs that fawn
and traitor roses of the wooing dawn:
for none hath known the magic dream of gold
come sooth, since that first surge of light outroll'd
heroic, broke the august and mother sleep
and foam'd, and azure was the rearward deep;
and Eden afloat among the virgin boughs
fused, song-jewel sudden, and flesh was blithe with vows
to tread, divine, under the naked air;
nor knew, alas! self-doom'd thro' time to bear
lewd summer's dusty mock and roses' fall,
and cynic spring, returning, virginal.

Chimaera writhes beside the tragic flame
of the old hearth: her starting jaws proclaim,
a silent cry, the craven world's attaint.
Her vans that beat against a hard constraint
leaps, as the coals jet in a moment-spasm:
yet their taut ribs hurt not the serpent chasm
of shade, that slips swift to its absent den,
to settle, grimlier, at her throat again.
And, starward were their prison-roof increas'd,
no sun that bathes him for a dewy east
would light her mail, above the tainted air
a meteor-dazzling gem, but the red flare
kindle disastrous on our burning eyes
from where the sullen embers agonize,
once the heart's rose-flusht dream of living gold.
Therefore her croup, thro' many a lapsing fold,
is bound into the iron's night, to check
the frenzy that contorts her charging neck:
her life is flitting with the fitful red
splashing her flank as 'twere her courage bled
to curdle with the void, whose metal-cold
shall seal her gone, a block no art shall mould.
And now the shining tongues that sprang to lick
the obscene blackness in are tarnisht thick:
insidiously thro' each blank pane the dark
invades from space, vast cemetery: one spark
flies up, the lessen'd ghost of flame: her flight
stiffens, and is a settled piece of night.


Scheme AABBCCDDEEFFGDHHBBIIXX JJDXKKLLMMIIBBGGNNOOGGPPQQRR
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 1111010101 0101110101 1111011 01010101001 1011010111 1101111101 010111011 1011010111 111110101 1111010101 1101110111 0101010101 1111010111 111111111 01010100101 010101011 01001010101 111010011111 1101100101 1101111111 1101010101 0101010100 11010101 1011010101 010101011 0111010101 11011001010 11111101010 1111111101 110110101 010110101 1111110101 1101010101 010010011011 10010110101 110101010 1011111101 1011100101 110101111 0101010101 0111010101 1001110101 111011101 1101011111 0101011111 001100111 1111101 0111110011 1101011101 1001010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 2,229
Words 388
Sentences 10
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 22, 28
Lines Amount 50
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 876
Words per stanza (avg) 193
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:00 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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