Analysis of Bavarian Gentians
David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)
Not every man has gentians in his house
in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas.
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto's
gloom,
ribbed and torchlike, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off
light,
lead me then, lead me the way.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch!
Let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of a flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness
down the way Persephone goes, just now, in first-frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness is married to dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice, as a bride
a gloom invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms of Pluto as he ravishes her once again
and pierces her once more with his passion of the utter dark
among the splendour of black-blue torches, shedding
fathomless darkness on the nuptials.
Bavarian gentians, tall and dark, but dark
darkening the daytime torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom,
ribbed hellish flowers erect, with their blaze of darkness spread blue,
blown flat into points, by the heavy white draught of the day.
Scheme | AABXCDEXDXXEXFXFBXBXBXA BCDE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1100111011 010101111 01001101101 100011101010110 1 10111111011 1100011101001111 110101101010111 11101111011 10110110111111 1 1111101 110101101 1111101111010 1010010111110110 10111110110010 101111011011 01011101101 010100100101 1011101110101 01011111010101 01011111010 110101 0100110111 10001111010101101 110100111111011 11011101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,386 |
Words | 239 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 23, 4 |
Lines Amount | 27 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 563 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 119 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 169 Views
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"Bavarian Gentians" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7814/bavarian-gentians>.
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