Analysis of Artemis To Actaeon
Edith Wharton 1862 (New York City) – 1937 (Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt)
Thou couldst not look on me and live: so runs
The mortal legend—thou that couldst not live
Nor look on me (so the divine decree)!
That saw’st me in the cloud, the wave, the bough,
The clod commoved with April, and the shapes
Lurking ‘twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark.
Mocked I thee not in every guise of life,
Hid in girls’ eyes, a naiad in her well,
Wooed through their laughter, and like echo fled,
Luring thee down the primal silences
Where the heart hushes and the flesh is dumb?
Nay, was not I the tide that drew thee out
Relentlessly from the detaining shore,
Forth from the home-lights and the hailing voices,
Forth from the last faint headland’s failing line,
Till I enveloped thee from verge to verge
And hid thee in the hollow of my being?
And still, because between us hung the veil,
The myriad-tinted veil of sense, thy feet
Refused their rest, thy hands the gifts of life,
Thy heart its losses, lest some lesser face
Should blur mine image in thine upturned soul
Ere death had stamped it there. This was thy thought.
And mine?
The gods, they say, have all: not so!
This have they—flocks on every hill, the blue
Spirals of incense and the amber drip
Of lucid honey-comb on sylvan shrines,
First-chosen weanlings, doves immaculate,
Twin-cooing in the osier-plaited cage,
And ivy-garlands glaucous with the dew:
Man’s wealth, man’s servitude, but not himself!
And so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane,
Freeze to the marble of their images,
And, pinnacled on man’s subserviency,
Through the thick sacrificial haze discern
Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak
Through icy mists may enviously descry
Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun.
So they along an immortality
Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze,
If haply some rash votary, empty-urned,
But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand,
Break rank, fling past the people and the priest,
Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine,
And there, the sacred curtain in his clutch,
Drop dead of seeing—while the others prayed!
Yes, this we wait for, this renews us, this
Incarnates us, pale people of your dreams,
Who are but what you make us, wood or stone,
Or cold chryselephantine hung with gems,
Or else the beating purpose of your life,
Your sword, your clay, the note your pipe pursues,
The face that haunts your pillow, or the light
Scarce visible over leagues of labouring sea!
O thus through use to reign again, to drink
The cup of peradventure to the lees,
For one dear instant disimmortalised
In giving immortality!
So dream the gods upon their listless thrones.
Yet sometimes, when the votary appears,
With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes,
Too young, they rather muse, too frail thou art,
And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil
And nuptial garland for so slight a thing?
And so to their incurious loves return.
Not so with thee; for some indeed there are
Who would behold the truth and then return
To pine among the semblances—but I
Divined in thee the questing foot that never
Revisits the cold hearth of yesterday
Or calls achievement home. I from afar
Beheld thee fashioned for one hour’s high use,
Nor meant to slake oblivion drop by drop.
Long, long hadst thou inhabited my dreams,
Surprising me as harts surprise a pool,
Stealing to drink at midnight; I divined
Thee rash to reach the heart of life, and lie
Bosom to bosom in occasion’s arms.
And said: Because I love thee thou shalt die!
For immortality is not to range
Unlimited through vast Olympian days,
Or sit in dull dominion over time;
But this—to drink fate’s utmost at a draught,
Nor feel the wine grow stale upon the lip,
To scale the summit of some soaring moment,
Nor know the dulness of the long descent,
To snatch the crown of life and seal it up
Secure forever in the vaults of death!
And this was thine: to lose thyself in me,
Relive in my renewal, and become
The light of other lives, a quenchless torch
Passed on from hand to hand, till men are dust
And the last garland withers from my shrine.
Scheme | AXBXXXCXDXEXXFGXHIXCXXXG XJKXXXJXXFALXBXBMDXXGXXXNXXCXXBXXDBAXXXIHL OLPXXOXXNXDPXP XMXXKXXXX BEXXG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110111 0101011111 1111100101 1110010101 011110001 1011011001 11110100111 101101001 1111001101 1011010100 101100111 1111011111 0100100101 11011001010 110111101 1101011111 01100101110 0101011101 01001011111 0111110111 1111011101 111100111 1111111111 01 01111111 11111100101 1010100101 1101011101 110110100 110001101 01011101 111101101 0111111111 1101011100 01111 101010101 11011111 1101110001 111101101 110110100 110110111 11111101 11111111 1111010001 101111011 0101010011 1111010101 1111110111 11110111 1111111111 111111 1101010111 1111011101 0111110101 1100101111 1111110111 0111101 111101 0100100 1101011101 10110101 1101010011 1111011111 0111111101 0101011101 01111101 1111110111 1101010101 11010111 101011110 010011110 1101011101 1110111011 11110100111 1111010011 0101110101 10111111 1111011101 1011000101 0101111111 101001111 01001101001 1101010101 111111101 1101110101 11010111010 110110101 1101110111 0101000111 011111101 0101010001 011101011 1111111111 0011010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,923 |
Words | 708 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 24, 42, 14, 9, 5 |
Lines Amount | 94 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 627 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 141 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 3:32 min read
- 109 Views
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"Artemis To Actaeon" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9071/artemis-to-actaeon>.
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