Analysis of Solar Furnace
Neil McLeod 1947 (Oxford)
Solar Furnace
(Left to their own devices young boys can be cruel rascals; strings attached to cats tails is an example. The solar furnace kept us amused for hours.)
Those thick domed headlight lenses
Make excellent solar condensers
For an optical crucible.
The trick is to make the depth
Of the earth hole equal to the focal length
Of the lens.
The sides are smoothed with water
And the edge close fitting
So nothing can escape.
On the equator the sun is overhead every day,
And peering down we could see the prey
Magnified in the pit.
The center floor became very hot
And woodlice or siafu ants delighted us
When their toes hit the fire .
Ultimately everything went pop
And you could feel this through the earth
As the chamber filled with smoke.
Spiders could hang themselves
Out of danger for a long time
But tumbling they sizzled.
Scheme | AX XAX XXX BXX CCX XAB XXX XXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1010 11110101111101010111111010010101101110 111110 1100101 11100100 0111101 10111010101 101 0111110 001110 110101 100100111011001 010111101 10001 010101101 011110101 1111010 10001011 01111101 1010111 101101 11101011 1100110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 812 |
Words | 150 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 23 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 84 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 19 |
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"Solar Furnace" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/84515/solar-furnace>.
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