Analysis of Leopards at Knole
Victoria Sackville-West 1862 (Paris) – 1936 (Roedean, Sussex)
Leopards on the gable-ends,
Leopards on the painted stair,
Stiff the blazoned shield they bear,
Or and gules, a bend of vair,
Leopards on the gable-ends,
Leopards everywhere.
Guard and vigil in the night
While the ancient house is sleeping
They three hundred years are keeping,
Nightly from their stations leaping,
Shadows black in moonlight bright,
Roof to gable creeping.
Rigid when the day returns,
Up aloft in sun or rain
Leopards at their posts again
Watch the shifting pageant's train;
And their jewelled colour burns
In the window-pane.
Often on the painted stair,
As I passed abstractedly,
Velvet footsteps, two and three,
Padded gravely after me.
- There was nothing, nothing there,
Nothing there to see.
Scheme | AbbbAb cdddcd efxfef bxggbg |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1010101 1010101 101111 1010111 1010101 1010 1010001 10101110 11101110 10111010 11011 111010 1010101 1010111 1011101 101011 01111 00101 1010101 1111 101101 1010101 1110101 10111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 698 |
Words | 119 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 143 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 84 Views
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"Leopards at Knole" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37849/leopards-at-knole>.
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