Monday 3 December 2018

Leaves Overhead

Poul Anderson, Harvest The Fire, Chapter 2, p. 58.

A descriptive passage sounds unusually lyrical. Might it be possible to rearrange some of it as blank verse? This sentence in particular:

"Leaves rustled overhead, parted their vaults to give
"A glimpse of sky as blue and sun as bright
"As if they had been real, drew back together
"In the breeze and cast shadows speckled with light."

(Not just blank verse: lines two and four, as rearranged, rhyme.) 

Although I cannot find the right number of syllables in its other sentences, this whole paragraph reads as if some other rhythm were present.

See also:

A Midsummer Tempest VIII
Exiles
Ys And A Midsummer Tempest 

4 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And of course Poul Anderson wrote poetry as well as prose! From short poems like "Prayer in War" to longer ones like "The Battle of Brandobar."

Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Paul and Sean!

I might add that there is a chapter in THE KING OF YS, specifically in the third volume, DAHUT, if I recall correctly, which is written as prose in paragraphs, rather than as lines of verse, but which both rhymes and scans. It describes the party which DAHUT holds for her young friends after Gratillonius defeats the Saxons; she helped by magically healing him of an injury.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Nicholas,
That passage is discussed and quoted in the third link in this post.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

I had either not known or had forgotten how that part of DAHUT is a kind of disguised poem. Something to look up!

Regards! Sean