Analysis of The Song Of The Dead
Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges --
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South -- in the sun by their skeleton horses,
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust
of the sear river-courses.
Song of the Dead in the East -- in the heat-rotted jungle hollows,
Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof --
in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.
Song of the Dead in the West --
in the Barrens, the waste that betrayed them,
Where the wolverene tumbles their packs
from the camp and the grave-mound they made them;
Hear now the Song of the Dead!
We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks -- as the steer breaks -- from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
Then the wood failed -- then the food failed -- then the last water dried --
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.
On the sand-drift -- on the veldt-side -- in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after -- follow after! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!
Follow after -- we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,
For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.
Follow after -- follow after -- for the harvest is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!
When Drake went down to the Horn
And England was crowned thereby,
'Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed
Our Lodge -- our Lodge was born
(And England was crowned thereby!)
Which never shall close again
By day nor yet by night,
While man shall take his life to stake
At risk of shoal or main
(By day nor yet by night).
But standeth even so
As now we witness here,
While men depart, of joyful heart,
Adventure for to know
(As now bear witness here!)
We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!
There's never a flood goes shoreward now
But lifts a keel we manned;
There's never an ebb goes seaward now
But drops our dead on the sand --
But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,
From the Ducies to the Swin.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid it in!
We must feed our sea for a thousand years,
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed with the ~Golden Hind~,
Or the wreck that struck last tide --
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef
Where the ghastly blue-lights flare.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!
Scheme | aaaba xcadexef ggxfhhiijjkkxxll mNbmN xOxxO pqxpq rbxfdxSx tutuqgSSx rixicvSSSv |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101101001101110 11111010111111 11010010011110010 101101101 1011010 1101001001101010 10111001 00110101 1101001 0010011011 1011011 1010011111 1101101 10101010001101 1101011101111 101010101010101 1011111111111 10111011101111 00111010111101 10111011101101 0011101011101 10111011001111 110111010101101 10101010111001 001111101111 10101110101111 1011101101101 10101010101011 1010101111111 1111101 0101111 111011 10110111 0101111 1101101 111111 11111111 111111 111111 11101 111101 11011101 010111 111101 11110110101 011111 1110011101 1110101 11110110101 1010011 1110111000 1111101 110011101 110111 110111101 11101101 111011011 101101 1110111000 1110111000 1111110 11110110101 11110101 11111110101 1011111 1011110101 1010111 1110111000 1110111000 1110111000 1111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,196 |
Words | 602 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 8, 16, 5, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10 |
Lines Amount | 71 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 259 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 66 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 3:02 min read
- 228 Views
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"The Song Of The Dead" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33569/the-song-of-the-dead>.
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