Analysis of Nightfall with Bats
William Goresko 1951 (Philadelphia, PA) – 2008 (Willow Grove, PA)
As night meets day the sky grows grey
Along the seam that separates the two,
And from that crack on wings of black
Their ragged shapes come softly flitting through.
Bereft of sight they soar like kites
Whose crazy zig-zags etch the dusky sky,
Their leathery wings and silent pings
Cut through the dark to where their quarry fly.
I don't know from what haunts they come
Or where they go when dawn begins to break,
What dusty rooms set deep in gloom
They sleep their days and into twilight wake.
Nor do I know where reason goes
When heavy clouds enshroud man's fractious heart;
He blindly feeds on bloody deeds
That stain his soul and make the day turn dark.
And in his blurred and malformed world
The little things must bear part of the blame,
The toad, the cat, and yes, the bat,
Both they and others forced to share man's shame.
As day meets night the sky grows bright,
Along the seam the little bats fly home,
But the demons that afflict man's soul
They never sleep, they gnaw him to the bone.
Scheme | XAXA XBXB XCXC XXXX XDXD XXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (67%) |
Metre | 11110111 010111001 01111111 1101110101 01111111 110111011 110010101 1101111101 11111111 1111110111 11011101 111100111 11111101 1101011101 11011101 1111010111 0011011 0101111101 01010101 1101011111 11110111 0101010111 101010111 1101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 972 |
Words | 186 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 131 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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"Nightfall with Bats" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/98724/nightfall-with-bats>.
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