Analysis of Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Interlude V.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
A strain of music closed the tale,
A low, monotonous, funeral wail,
That with its cadence, wild and sweet,
Made the long Saga more complete.
'Thank God,' the Theologian said,
'The reign of violence is dead,
Or dying surely from the world;
While Love triumphant reigns instead,
And in a brighter sky o'erhead
His blessed banners are unfurled.
And most of all thank God for this:
The war and waste of clashing creeds
Now end in words, and not in deeds,
And no one suffers loss, or bleeds,
For thoughts that men call heresies.
'I stand without here in the porch,
I hear the bell's melodious din,
I hear the organ peal within,
I hear the prayer, with words that scorch
Like sparks from an inverted torch,
I hear the sermon upon sin,
With threatenings of the last account.
And all, translated in the air,
Reach me but as our dear Lord's Prayer,
And as the Sermon on the Mount.
'Must it be Calvin, and not Christ?
Must it be Athanasian creeds,
Or holy water, books, and beads?
Must struggling souls remain content
With councils and decrees of Trent?
And can it be enough for these
The Christian Church the year embalms
With evergreens and boughs of palms,
And fills the air with litanies?
'I know that yonder Pharisee
Thanks God that he is not like me;
In my humiliation dressed,
I only stand and beat my breast,
And pray for human charity.
'Not to one church alone, but seven,
The voice prophetic spake from heaven;
And unto each the promise came,
Diversified, but still the same;
For him that overcometh are
The new name written on the stone,
The raiment white, the crown, the throne,
And I will give him the Morning Star!
'Ah! to how many Faith has been
No evidence of things unseen,
But a dim shadow, that recasts
The creed of the Phantasiasts,
For whom no Man of Sorrows died,
For whom the Tragedy Divine
Was but a symbol and a sign,
And Christ a phantom crucified!
'For others a diviner creed
Is living in the life they lead.
The passing of their beautiful feet
Blesses the pavement of the street
And all their looks and words repeat
Old Fuller's saying, wise and sweet,
Not as a vulture, but a dove,
The Holy Ghost came from above.
'And this brings back to me a tale
So sad the hearer well may quail,
And question if such things can be;
Yet in the chronicles of Spain
Down the dark pages runs this stain,
And naught can wash them white again,
So fearful is the tragedy.'
Scheme | AABB CCDCBDEFFFE GHHGGHIJJI XFFKKLEXL EMNNM OOPPQRRQ HXEESTTS XCBBBBUU AAMVVXM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 01110101 0101001001 11110101 10110101 11001001 01110011 11010101 11010101 0001011 1110101 01111111 01011101 11010101 01110111 111111 11011001 110101001 11010101 11011111 11110101 11010011 1110101 01010001 111110111 01010101 11110011 11111 11010101 110010110 11000111 01110111 0101011 1100111 01011100 111101 11111111 0100101 11010111 01110100 111101110 010101110 01010101 0101101 11111 01110101 0110101 011110101 11110111 11001101 101111 01101 11111101 11010001 11010001 0101010 110011 11000111 010111001 10010101 01110101 11010101 11010101 01011101 01111101 11010111 01011111 10010011 10110111 01111101 11010100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,318 |
Words | 442 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 11, 10, 9, 5, 8, 8, 8, 7 |
Lines Amount | 70 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 205 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:13 min read
- 49 Views
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"Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Interlude V." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18745/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-%3A-part-1.-interlude-v.>.
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