Silhouette
Emily Pauline Johnson 1861 – 1913
The sky-line melts from russet into blue,
Unbroken the horizon, saving where
A wreath of smoke curls up the far, thin air,
And points the distant lodges of the Sioux.
Etched where the lands and cloudlands touch and die
A solitary Indian tepee stands,
The only habitation of these lands,
That roll their magnitude from sky to sky.
The tent poles lift and loom in thin relief,
The upward floating smoke ascends between,
And near the open doorway, gaunt and lean,
And shadow-like, there stands an Indian Chief.
With eyes that lost their lustre long ago,
With visage fixed and stern as fate's decree,
He looks towards the empty west, to see
The never-coming herd of buffalo.
Only the bones that bleach upon the plains,
Only the fleshless skeletons that lie
In ghastly nakedness and silence, cry
Out mutely that naught else to him remains
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 20, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 450 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EFFE GHHG ICCI |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 841 |
Words | 147 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"Silhouette" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/12608/silhouette>.
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