Analysis of Justice
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
Across a world where all men grieve
And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
The load our sons must bear.
Before we loose the word
That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen first the sword
Of Justice upon earth;
Or else all else is vain
Since life on earth began,
And the spent world sinks back again
Hopeless of God and Man.
A People and their King
Through ancient sin grown strong,
Because they feared no reckoning
Would set no bound to wrong;
But now their hour is past,
And we who bore it find
Evil Incarnate hell at last
To answer to mankind.
For agony and spoil
Of nations beat to dust,
For poisoned air and tortured soil
And cold, commanded lust,
And every secret woe
The shuddering waters saw.
Willed and fulfilled by high and low.
Let them relearn the Low.
That when the dooms are read,
Not high nor low shall say:--
" My haughty or my humble head
Was saved me in this day."
That, till the end of time,
Their remnant shall recall
Their fathers old, confederate crime
Availed them not at all.
That neither schools nor priests,
Nor Kings may build again
A people with the heart of beasts
Made wise concerning men.
Whereby our dead shall sleep
In honour, unbetrayed,
And we in faith and honour keep
That peace for which they paid.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFXFXGHG IJIJKLKL MNMNCXCC OPOPQRQR SHSHTETX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01011111 010101 01111101 10111001 1001101 0101101 11110101 0110111 011101 111111 11110101 110011 111111 111101 00111101 101101 010011 110111 01111100 111111 1111011 011111 10010111 110111 110001 110111 11010101 010101 0100101 0100101 10011101 110101 110111 111111 11011101 111011 110111 11011 110101001 011111 110111 111101 01010111 110101 0110111 011 0101011 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,362 |
Words | 267 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 06, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 229 Views
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"Justice" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33256/justice>.
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