Analysis of Oxford
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
It is well that there are palaces of peace
And discipline and dreaming and desire,
Lest we forget our heritage and cease
The Spirit’s work—to hunger and aspire:
Lest we forget that we were born divine,
Now tangled in red battle’s animal net,
Murder the work and lust the anodyne,
Pains of the beast ‘gainst bestial solace set.
But this shall never be: to us remains
One city that has nothing of the beast,
That was not built for gross, material gains,
Sharp, wolfish power or empire’s glutted feast.
We are not wholly brute. To us remains
A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams,
A place of visions and of loosening chains,
A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams.
She was not builded out of common stone
But out of all men’s yearning and all prayer
That she might live, eternally our own,
The Spirit’s stronghold—barred against despair.
Scheme | AXAX BCBC DEDE DFDF GHGH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (80%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11111110011 01000100010 11011010001 0101110001 1101110101 11001101001 10010101 1101110101 1111011101 1101110101 11111101001 11101100101 1111011101 0111011101 01110011001 010100101011 111111101 1111110011 11110100101 010110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 849 |
Words | 153 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 80 Views
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"Oxford" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6955/oxford>.
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