I have been asked to analyse this poem, I would like some suggestions

The Great Lover

I have been so great a lover: filled in days
So proudly with the splendor of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame: -we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: -we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden forever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming....

These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, fairy dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to
touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such-
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns....
Dear names,
And thousand others throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing:
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mold;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; -
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramental covenant to the dust.
Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends now strangers . . . .
But the best I've known
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed
Praise you, " All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

Rupert Brooke

__________________________________________________________________


Sarah, in analyzing a poem, many instructors look at a variety of poetic features, but most include the following:

1. Language
2. Rhyme/Meter
3. Meaning/Connotation
4. Emotional impact/feeling
5. Personal opinion of the poem


Les

Inenarrable? I wonder if that was a common word back in Rupert's days. I cannot read this one without thinking of two separate ones by John Magee. Compare the last line in this one with the one above.


Sonnet to Rupert Brooke

We laid him in a cool and shadowed grove
One evening, in the dreamy scent of time,
Where leaves were green, and whispered high above
-- A grave as humble as it was sublime;
There, dreaming in the fading deeps of light, --
The hands that thrilled to touch a woman's hair;
Brown eyes, that loved the Day and looked on Night,
A soul that found at last its answered prayer ...

There daylight, as a dust, slips through the trees,
And drifting, gilds the fern about his grave --
Where even now, perhaps, the evening breeze
Steals shyly past the tomb of him who gave
New sight to blinded eyes; who sometimes wept --
A short time dearly loved; and after, -- slept.


And then there is this one, apparently a take-off on RB's:


The Cynic

These I have loathed:
Asthmatic engines; stations;
Tea in the parlour; coughing congregations;
-- And coal-scuttles; and coal; and clammy hands;
And business men; and military bands;
Tomatoes; hypocrites, and smelly places,
And ill-concealed emotion; vulgar faces;
Orderly picnics; pavement-written scandal;
And Liverpool; -- and cups without a handle;
The adhesive kiss of lipstick; school; and blackboards
(And all that's written on them) -- ugly discords
struck by aspiring pianists; pyjamas,
When I have lost the cord; and spying farmers;
Meals missed; and ink; the obstinate embrace
Of cobwebs; and my brother's blatant face;
Unripe bananas; -- Little more when ripe --
And close-cropped hair; wet hands I cannot wipe;
Names unpronounceable; and bowler hats;
My nose, and mutilated books; and spats;
And raucous horns; effluvium of fish;
Plucked eyebrows; mud; to "close my eyes and wish"
For vague delights; tobacco-reeking fingers;
And *pukkah sahibs*; and buses; female singers;
And feet; and stocks-and-shares; and millionaires,
And wealth; but more than all ill-gotten pelf,
I hate my gross, inevitable self.

I love it - both dear old Brooke's love poem to old england and the more cynical view!