Analysis of Albert Einstein at Princeton
As he locked the door
Of their Berlin home
And descended the steps,
To his wife, Einstein said:
'Take a very good look at it,
You will never see it again'.
The writing was on the wall
Fumes were in the air.
In his travel diary, he scribbled:
'I am a bird of passage
And shall be flying...
Flying for the rest of my life.
The Nazis were crazy,
In a short while the Caputh cottage-
His Berlin home was ransacked.
His account was frozen
His papers were burnt.
He was then in the States,
Life proved very fluid, and mysterious.
Where appeared the end of cleavage?
Where were the dales void of gales?
After a cycle of life,
From Southampton on October 7, 1933
He boarded 'Westmoreland'
'Auf Wiedersehen' he bade Europe
Never to see those shores again.
Wearing a wide-brimmed black hat,
Carrying his violin case,
In ten days he landed at the New York docks,
Liberty greeted him with her lofty torch.
Princeton he soon arrived,
A lease of life he now really enjoyed.
Arrived at the Peacock Inn there
'Baltimore' offered him an ice cream.
A new venture at the Princeton University-
The Institute for Advanced Study.
As one of her founding fathers,
He served there for decades, illustrious.
While his office was set,
To the queries that followed,
His reply was an offbeat-
'A desk or table, a chair, pen and papers,
Also, a waste basket to throw the mistakes'
First a few months at 2 Library Place,
Then at 112 Mercer Street-
For two decades very wholesome life,
Simple, peaceful, eventful, and historic.
Upon her walls hung the following four:
Faraday, Maxwell, Newton, and, Gandhiji.
Here, his wife Elsa breathed her last,
Here, his sister Maja spent her final days,
Finally, he too.... he too....
Among the Princeton streets
Often he lost his way back home!
Driving was beyond his levels,
He preferred long walks.
A mountaineer across the Alpine range,
Once he had a miraculous escape.
Providence to life him brought,
Our world needed a genius, so bright.
Einstein desired no monuments,
No museums or landmarks.
Princeton preserves no trails,
Barring a few, hidden from lurking eyes.
In the rear corner of a shop 'Landau'
His memorabilia is on display.
In a corner of the municipal complex
Almost unnoticeable his bust is displayed.
He led a simple life,
In a higher order of power, he believed.
For disarmament, he fought,
For science and peace, he stood.
His home, now a private property,
Only a few can now locate it.
For the world, he is an iconic figure,
Beyond that, a humanist in every sense.
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Scheme | ABCXDE XFXGXH IGXXX XJGK HLXXE XMXX XXFX IINJ XXONX MOHX AGXXX XBXX XXPX XXKX XXXX HXPX IDLXC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101 11011 001001 111101 10101111 11101101 0101101 10001 0110100110 1101110 01110 10101111 010010 00110110 101111 101110 11001 111001 11101000100 10101110 1001111 1001011 10101010 110010 111110 10111101 1001111 10010011 01111010111 10010110101 101101 0111111001 0110111 10101111 011010100100 01010110 11101010 1111010100 111011 1010110 1011111 01110011010 10011011001 10111101 11101 110110101 10100100010 0101101001 1011001 11110101 1110110101 1001111 010101 10111111 10101110 10111 01001011 1110010001 1001111 1011001011 100101100 101011 100111 1001101101 001101011 100101101 001010010010 1111101 110101 001010110101 1010011 1100111 111010100 10011111 101111110 011010001001 1 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,567 |
Words | 517 |
Sentences | 32 |
Stanzas | 17 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 5, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5 |
Lines Amount | 77 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 116 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
About this poem
The poem describes his leaving Germany under Hitler's autocracy and migrating to the USA to finally reach Princeton to head 'The Institute for Advanced Study'. He lived in Princeton for two decades at 112 Mercer Street before he died in 1955.
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"Albert Einstein at Princeton" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/176134/albert-einstein-at-princeton>.
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