IN ADORATION
Blest as the immortal gods is he,
The youth whose eyes may look on thee,
Whose ears thy tongue's sweet melody,
May still devour.
Thou smilest too!--sweet smile, whose charm,
Has struck my soul with wild alarm,
And, when I see thee, bids disarm,
Each vital power.
Speechless I gaze: the flame within,
Runs swift o'er all my quivering skin:
My eyeballs swim; with dizzy din,
My brain reels round;
And cold drops fall; and tremblings frail,
Seize every limb; and grassy pale,
I grow; and then--together fail,
Both sight and sound.
Analysis/ Review of the poem.
A beautiful shirt poem written by Sappho. A poet and a writer. This is an ode to praise someone dear to the poet. The poet description of the person shows an ideal figure/ representation of perfection that the reader should look into and learn. The beauty and perfect personality that come with it. Someone worthy of emulation which youth can look up to.
Looking at the structure of the poem, it's a poem of sixteen line with four stanza (quarter each), with rhyme scheme which occurs at the end of the first to third lines of each of the stanzas. The tone of the poet is simple and filled with admiration and joy, showing a sense of affection. The poem is simple and easy to understand, although there's use of iambic parameters which is poetic licenses given to poet to express themselves. The theme of poem is closely centered on adoration of someone, every one especially the youth should look up to. The identification of the person used in the poem might be unknown but the poet used the person’s personality as a standard to enlightened the youth. Every youths should mirror themselves from the that lens and become a legacy that will be ever remembered or praised.
The figure of speech seen in the poem are;
1. Alliteration: the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables. It is seen in the first line of the second stanza of poem “Thou smilest too!--sweet smile, whose charm,”
2. Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them. This is seen in first line in stanza one “Blest as the immortal gods is he”
3. Enjambment: the running over of a sentence from one verse or couplet into another so that closely related words fall in different lines. This poetic devices occurs through out the poem.