Analysis of Hurt Hawks
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.
You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.
I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;
but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance.
I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.
Scheme | XX XAX XBX XCX XXX CCC XXAX BXXX XXXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010101011101010 0111010001 11110101011110 0101111010 11001110111110110 111001101 011101011101010 0100101101 11101111010010011 011011011 11011110111011 001010001001 01110110110011 111011010100 111111010101110101 0100010010101 10001010111100101 110010100101101 1011 11011010100 101110110011110110111 11111111110 1101001100100101011 1101011101 0100100 111011001 1110111011001011 10110110101010111110 011111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,575 |
Words | 286 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 136 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 04, 2023
- 1:26 min read
- 96 Views
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