Analysis of Mystique: Reflections on a Painting by Paul Delvaux
Banished to a treeless valley
bound by mountains and an ice-clogged bay
several identical young ladies
patient under the brief sun
sit erect in straight back chairs
outside the plain doors of facing bungalows
hands interlocked on their laps
thighs and ankles touching under silk gowns
in their faces aspects of drifting snow
in their eyes a memory of the moon
framed in the frost of their windows
Far from buxom peasants stacking straw
or mannequins kicking net-stockinged legs
or tilted angels gilded in palpable piety
or naive ballerinas bathed in chiffon auras
theirs are wistful and immaculate forms
as stark as their mountains
as chaste as their sorrows
and as terrible as the sea
Scheme | AXBXXCXXXXC XXABXXCA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101010 111001111 100100110 1010011 1010111 1101111010 101111 1010101011 011011101 0110100101 10011110 111010101 110010111 11010100100100 1101010011 1110001001 111110 111110 01100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 667 |
Words | 115 |
Sentences | 1 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 8 |
Lines Amount | 19 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 285 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 58 |
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
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"Mystique: Reflections on a Painting by Paul Delvaux" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/79864/mystique%3A-reflections-on-a-painting-by-paul-delvaux>.
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