jenright

Phil, thank you. I've done a number of poems about paintings, and one of my regrets in publishing the poems is that they usually aren't accompanied by a nice full-color reproduction of the paintings in question! Poems about paintings are a modern tradition, but it really helps to see them together, since the relationship is symbiotic.

Roger, thank you. Yes, it's a sonnet. The "istence" rhymes definitely change the metrical feel by adding an unaccented syllable at the ends of those lines. But in traditional terms, it's still iambic pentameter but with a feminine rhyme. I would scan the last six lines this way: -/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/- -/-/-/-/-/- -/-/-/-/-/ /-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/- Of course, in a reading, you would not sound out the beats exactly this way. But that's what I think of as the underlying meter. The really irregular line, to me, is "Overhead the darkess fills the sky." It's only nine syllables. It's missing its initial unaccented syllable. It's the one I scan as: /-/-/-/-/ I've noticed that I have a tendency get a little bit irregular near the end, and then go regular again in the last line.

Yes, when I dug up the poem and read it, those lines about austere worship did immediately put me in mind of Rand and some of the comments about her worshipful attitudes earlier in the thread. It was written sometime in the seventies. The rhyme scheme does keep you guessing somehow.

He turns his golden, godlike head away, In vain attempt to hide his pain, and, more, To cast his own eyes far, and, hence, ignore The agony he must endure this day. The woman who is watching does not pray. And yet, she worships, with a glance austere. Her soul is steady. Neither dread nor fear Can shake the awe which holds her in his sway. Stretched out upon his cross, he hangs so high, He seems to rise above his pain's existence - No, not by height alone, but the insistence Of his mind's might, which does not choose to die. Overhead the darkness fills the sky, But, tremblingly, a light shines in the distance.

Mary is portrayed by Dali's wife, Gala, believe. I was once inspired to write a poem about this painting.