Analysis of In The Neolithic Age
In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt;
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.
Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg
Were about me and beneath me and above.
But a rival, of Solutr]/e, told the tribe my style was ~outr]/e~ --
'Neath a tomahawk of diorite he fell.
And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heart
Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.
Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full,
And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;
And I wiped my mouth and said, "It is well that they are dead,
For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong."
But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night: --
"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!"
Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me
Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail;
And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer
[And a minor poet certified by Tr--ll].
Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow,
When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;
When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,
And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.
Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,
Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;
Still we let our business slide -- as we dropped the half-dressed hide --
To show a fellow-savage how to work.
Still the world is wondrous large, -- seven seas from marge to marge, --
And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu,
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.
Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: --
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right!
Scheme | abcb xdxd efxf xgxg xhIh exxf xjij akxk xcxc xhIh |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 0011101111 1101010101 11101110111111 01111110101 1111111100101 101111101 00101010011101 00110011001 101011110111111 101011011 01111111010101 101111 11111110110111 01111010101 01111011111111 11111110111 1110101111111 01110010101 11101011010101 01001011111 1010101111111011 1101010111 0110111010101010 00101010111 1110101111101 1110101111 10111011 010101010111 10101011110101 1110101101 111101011110111 1101010111 10111011011111 011011100111 001011110111 001110101 11101111111101 0011110111 11101011010101 01001011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,184 |
Words | 422 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 41 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 165 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 2:06 min read
- 295 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"In The Neolithic Age" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33252/in-the-neolithic-age>.
Discuss this Rudyard Kipling 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