Analysis of The Litany Of Nations
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,
We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,
We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,
O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee,
By the sealed and secret ages of thy life;
By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces;
By the songs of stars thy sisters in their courses;
By thine own song hoarse and hollow and shrill with strife;
By thy voice distuned and marred of modulation;
By the discord of thy measure's march with theirs;
By the beauties of thy bosom, and the cares;
By thy glory of growth, and splendour of thy station;
By the shame of men thy children, and the pride;
By the pale-cheeked hope that sleeps and weeps and passes,
As the grey dew from the morning mountain-grasses;
By the white-lipped sightless memories that abide;
By the silence and the sound of many sorrows;
By the joys that leapt up living and fell dead;
By the veil that hides thy hands and breasts and head,
Wrought of divers-coloured days and nights and morrows;
Isis, thou that knowest of God what worlds are worth,
Thou the ghost of God, the mother uncreated,
Soul for whom the floating forceless ages waited
As our forceless fancies wait on thee, O Earth;
Thou the body and soul, the father-God and mother,
If at all it move thee, knowing of all things done
Here where evil things and good things are not one,
But their faces are as fire against each other;
By thy morning and thine evening, night and day;
By the first white light that stirs and strives and hovers
As a bird above the brood her bosom covers,
By the sweet last star that takes the westward way;
By the night whose feet are shod with snow or thunder,
Fledged with plumes of storm, or soundless as the dew;
By the vesture bound of many-folded blue
Round her breathless breasts, and all the woven wonder;
By the golden-growing eastern stream of sea;
By the sounds of sunrise moving in the mountains;
By the forces of the floods and unsealed fountains;
Thou that badest man be born, bid man be free.
I am she that made thee lovely with my beauty
From north to south:
Mine, the fairest lips, took first the fire of duty
From thine own mouth.
Mine, the fairest eyes, sought first thy laws and knew them
Truths undefiled;
Mine, the fairest hands, took freedom first into them,
A weanling child.
By my light, now he lies sleeping, seen above him
Where none sees other;
By my dead that loved and living men that love him;
(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
I am she that was the light of thee enkindled
When Greece grew dim;
She whose life grew up with man's free life, and dwindled
With wane of him.
She that once by sword and once by word imperial
Struck bright thy gloom;
And a third time, casting off these years funereal,
Shall burst thy tomb.
By that bond 'twixt thee and me whereat affrighted
Thy tyrants fear us;
By that hope and this remembrance reunited;
(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
I am she that set my seal upon the nameless
West worlds of seas;
And my sons as brides took unto them the tameless
Hesperides.
Till my sins and sons through sinless lands dispersed,
With red flame shod,
Made accurst the name of man, and thrice accursed
The name of God.
Lest for those past fires the fires of my repentance
Hell's fume yet smother,
Now my blood would buy remission of my sentence;
(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
I am she that was thy sign and standard-bearer,
Thy voice and cry;
She that washed thee with her blood and left thee fairer,
The same was I.
Were not these the hands that raised thee fallen and fed thee,
These hands defiled?
Was not I thy tongue that spake, thine eye that led thee,
Not I thy child?
By the darkness on our dreams, and the dead errors
Of dead times near us;
By the hopes that hang around thee, and the terrors;
(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
I am she whose hands are strong and her eyes blinded
And lips athirst
Till upon the night of nations many-minded
One bright day burst:
Till the myriad stars be molten into one light,
And that light thine;
Till the soul of man be parcel of the sunlight,
And thine of mine.
By the snows that blanch not him nor cleanse from slaughter
Who slays his brother;
By the stains and by the chains on me thy daughter;
(Cho.) Hear u
Scheme | abbacdecfggfheehxiidbhjbkffklmmlknnkaooa apapqhqrsksK hsxstutuhvwV vxddxyhyzkzK k1 k1 aharmVmv whjx2 3 2 3 kkkn |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (27%) |
Metre | 111111111111 11101011101 10101111111 110100101011 10101010111 101001111010 101111100110 111110100111 1111011010 10101110111 10101110001 111011011110 10111110001 101111101010 101110101010 10111100101 101000111010 10111110011 10111110101 11101010101 10111111111 101110101 11101011010 11011011111 1010010101010 111111101111 11101011111 1110111001110 11100110101 101111101010 101010101010 10111110101 101111111110 1111111101 1011110101 101010101010 10101010111 10111100010 101010100110 1111111111 111111101110 1111 1010111010110 1111 101011111011 11 101011101011 011 111111101011 11110 111110101111 111110 1111101111 1111 111111111010 1111 1111101110100 1111 0011101111 1111 111110111 11011 11101010010 111011 111111101010 1111 01111110101 1 1110111101 1111 110111011 0111 11111001011010 11110 111110101110 111110 111111101010 1101 111110101110 0111 0110111110011 111 111111111111 1111 1010110100110 11111 101110110010 111011 111111100110 011 101011101010 1111 1010011100111 0111 10111110101 0111 101111111110 11110 101010111110 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,304 |
Words | 792 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 40, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12 |
Lines Amount | 100 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 545 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 131 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:58 min read
- 95 Views
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"The Litany Of Nations" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1417/the-litany-of-nations>.
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