Analysis of A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign
Vachel Lindsay 1879 (Springfield) – 1931 (Springfield)
I look on the specious electrical light
Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white,
Wickedly red or malignantly green
Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen.
Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,
The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn,
By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl,
Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl,
By maggotry motions in sickening line
Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine,
While there far above the steep cliffs of the street
The stars sing a message elusive and sweet.
Now man cannot rest in his pleasure and toil
His clumsy contraptions of coil upon coil
Till the thing he invents, in its use and its range,
Leads on to the marvelous CHANGE BEYOND CHANGE
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies,
As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise.
And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night,
Till we join with the planets who choir their delight.
The signs in the street and the signs in the skies
Shall make me a Zodiac, guiding and wise,
And Broadway make one with that marvelous stair
That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.
Scheme | AABBXXCCDDE EFFGGHHAAHHII |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101001001 1001001001 1001111 10110111 1011011101 0101101111 11111011011 1011101101 111001001 01001101101 11101011101 01101001001 11101011001 11001011011 101101011011 11101001011 1111111101 101011101111 01111001011 1111010110101 01001001001 1110101001 0111111001 11110111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,101 |
Words | 200 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 13 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 436 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 99 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 09, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 154 Views
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