Analysis of The Little Czar
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
Oh, Great White Czar of Russia, who hid your face and ran,
You’ve flung afar the grandest chance that ever came to man!
You might have been, and could have been—ah, think it to your shame!—
The Czar of all the Russias, in fact as well as name.
‘The Father of your People,’ your children called to you
To do the things to save them which only you could do.
Your soldiers whipped their faces—the trodden snow is red
With the blood of men and women; and the blood is on your head!
I saw in dreams a monarch, of his power all unaware,
Step down amongst his people from off his palace stair:
The Grand Dukes shrank and trembled, the traitors fled afar—
Through all the mighty Russias rang the order of the Czar!
You might have journeyed freely, wherever path is made,
Through all your vast dominions, alone and unafraid;
And, in the eyes of subjects, the cultured and the rude,
Have seen, instead of hatred, the tears of gratitude.
Oh, little Czar of Russia, a weak man and a fool,
At the mercy of your nobles—their prisoner and their tool—
Your freedom and your people’s and their love was to be won:
Ah, me! it would have been a deed a coward might have done.
Yet we who know so little might say one word for you:
How many in our weakness have lost our kingdoms, too!
And facing death and exile, when all the world seemed black,
How many in our after-strength have won our kingdoms back!
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IIJJ CCKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1111110111101 11010101110111 11110111111111 011101011111 0101110110111 1101111110111 1101110010111 101110100011111 1101011110101 1101110111101 0111010010101 1101011010101 1111010010111 1111101001 0001110010001 110111001110 1101110011001 101011101100011 11001100111111 11111101010111 1111110111111 110010101110101 010101110111 1100101011110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,394 |
Words | 265 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 45 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 179 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 115 Views
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