Analysis of Flammonde
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869 – 1935
The man Flammonde, from God knows where,
With firm address and foreign air
With news of nations in his talk
And something royal in his walk,
With glint of iron in his eyes,
But never doubt, nor yet surprise,
Appeared, adn stayed, and held his head
As one by kings accredited.
Erect, with his alert repose
About him, and about his clothes,
He pictured all tradition hears
Of what we owe to fifty years.
His cleansing heritage of taste
Paraded neither want nor waste;
And what he needed for his fee
To live, he borrowed graciously.
He never told us what he was,
Or what mischance, or other cause,
Had banished him from better days
To play the Prince of Castaways.
Meanwhile he played surpassing well
A part, for most, unplayable;
In fine, one pauses, half afraid
To say for certain that he played.
For that, one may as well forego
Conviction as to yes or no;
Nor can I say just how intense
Would then have been the difference
To several, who, having striven
In vain to get what he was given,
Would see the stranger taken on
By friends not easy to be won.
Moreover many a malcontent
He soothed, and found munificent;
His courtesy beguiled and foiled
Suspicion that his years were soiled;
His mien distinguished any crowd,
His credit strengthened when he bowed;
And women, young and old, were fond
Of looking at the man Flammond.
There was a woman in our town
On whom the fashion was to frown;
But while our talk renewed the tinge
Of a long-faded scarlet fringe,
The man Flammonde saw none of that,
And what he saw we wondered at--
That none of us, in her distress,
Could hide or find our littleness.
There was a boy that all agreed
had shut within him the rare seed
Of learning. We could understand,
But none of us could lift a hand.
The man Flammonde appraised the youth,
And told a few of us the truth;
And thereby, for a little gold,
A flowered future was unrolled.
There were two citizens who fought
For years and years, and over nought;
They made life awkward for their friends,
And shortened their own dividends.
The man Flammonde said what was wrong
Should be made right; nor was it long
Before they were again in line
And had each other in to dine.
And these I mention are but four
Of many out of many more.
So much for them. But what of him--
So firm in every look and limb?
What small satanic sort of kink
Was in his brain? What broken link
Withheld hom from the destinies
That came so near to being his?
What was he, when we came to sift
His meaning, and to note the drift
Of incommunicable ways
That make us ponder while we praise?
Why was it that his charm revealed
Somehow the surface of a shield?
What was it that we never caught?
What was he, and what was he not?
How much it was of him we met
We cannot ever know; nor yet
Shall all he gave us quite attone
For what was his, and his alone;
Nor need we now, since he knew best,
Nourish an ethical unrest:
Rarely at once will nature give
The power to be Flammonde and live.
We cannot know how much we learn
From those who never will return,
Until a flash of unforseen
Remembrance falls on what has been.
We've each a darkening hill to climb;
And this is why, from time to time
In Tilbury Town, we look beyond
Horizons for the man Flammonde.
Scheme | AABBCCDX XXXXEEFF GGHHIIJJ KKXXLLXL XDMMNNOD PPQQRRXC SSTTUUXD XDVVWWXX YYZZBXXX 1 1 HH2 2 3 3 4 4 LX5 5 XX 6 6 LX7 7 OD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111111 1110101 11110011 01010011 11110011 11011101 01110111 11110100 01110101 01100111 11010101 11111101 11010011 01010111 01110111 1111100 11011111 1111101 11011101 1101110 1110101 01111 01110101 11110111 11111101 01011111 11111101 11110100 11011010 011111110 11010101 11110111 01010001 11011 11000101 01011101 11010101 11010111 01010101 1101011 110100101 11010111 111010101 10110101 0111111 01111101 11110001 1111101 11011101 11011011 1101101 11111101 0110101 01011101 01110101 0101011 10110011 11010101 11110111 0101110 0111111 11111111 01100101 01110011 01110111 11011101 11111111 110100101 11010111 10111101 01110100 11111101 11111111 11001101 111 11110111 11111101 1010101 11111101 11101111 11111111 11010111 1111111 11110101 11111111 10110001 10111101 01011101 11011111 11110101 010111 01011111 110100111 01111111 01011101 0101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 3,198 |
Words | 609 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 96 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 209 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 3:03 min read
- 245 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Flammonde" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9971/flammonde>.
Discuss this Edwin Arlington Robinson poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In