Analysis of A Greeting
Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
And golden-fruited orange bowers
To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
To her who, in our evil time,
Dragged into light the nation's crime
With strength beyond the strength of men,
And, mightier than their swords, her pen!
To her who world-wide entrance gave
To the log-cabin of the slave;
Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
And all earth's languages his own,--
North, South, and East and West, made all
The common air electrical,
Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
Blazed down, and every chain was riven!
Welcome from each and all to her
Whose Wooing of the Minister
Revealed the warm heart of the man
Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,
And taught the kinship of the love
Of man below and God above;
To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes
Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks;
Whose fireside stories, grave or gay,
In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way,
With old New England's flavor rife,
Waifs from her rude idyllic life,
Are racy as the legends old
By Chaucer or Boccaccio told;
To her who keeps, through change of place
And time, her native strength and grace,
Alike where warm Sorrento smiles,
Or where, by birchen-shaded isles,
Whose summer winds have shivered o'er
The icy drift of Labrador,
She lifts to light the priceless Pearl
Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl!
To her at threescore years and ten
Be tributes of the tongue and pen;
Be honor, praise, and heart-thanks given,
The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!
Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs
The air to-day, our love is hers!
She needs no guaranty of fame
Whose own is linked with Freedom's name.
Long ages after ours shall keep
Her memory living while we sleep;
The waves that wash our gray coast lines,
The winds that rock the Southern pines,
Shall sing of her; the unending years
Shall tell her tale in unborn ears.
And when, with sins and follies past,
Are numbered color-hate and caste,
White, black, and red shall own as one
The noblest work by woman done.
Scheme | AAABBCCDDEEXXFF GGXFHHIIJJKKLLMMNNGXOOCCFF AAPPQQRRSSTTFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 110101110 01011010 111111110 101010101 10110101 11010111 010011101 10111101 10110101 11110101 01110011 11010111 01010100 01011110 1101001110 10110110 11010100 01011101 01011100 0101101 11010101 101100101 1011011 11010111 01110101 11110101 11010101 11010101 110111 10111111 01010101 011111 1111101 110111010 0101110 11110101 1110101 1011101 11010101 110101110 011101110 11010111 011110110 1110111 11111101 110101011 010010111 011110111 01110101 111000101 11010111 01110101 11010101 11011111 01011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,934 |
Words | 349 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 26, 14 |
Lines Amount | 55 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 520 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 115 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:47 min read
- 51 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"A Greeting" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22812/a-greeting>.
Discuss this John Greenleaf Whittier poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In