Analysis of When Norway Would Not Help
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1832 (Kvikne) – 1910 (Paris)
When Kattegat now or the Belt you sail,
No more will you sight
The Danish proud frigate, no more will you hail
The red and white;
No more will the ringing command be heard
In Wessel's tongue,
No rollicking music, no jocund word,
'Neath Dannebrog sung.
No dance will you see, no laughter meet,
As the white sails shine,
From mast and from stern no garland you greet,
Of arts the sign.
But all that we owned of the treasures on board
The deeps now hold;
One sad winter night to the sea-waves were poured
Our memories old.
It was that same night, when the frigate nigh
To Norway's land
Distress-guns was firing, the surf running high
With sea-weed and sand.
To help from the harbor men put out boats,
But they turn back,…
The frigate toward Germany drifting floats,
A broken wrack!
What once had been ours overboard was strown,
Each kinship mark
Was quickly removed, to the sea it was thrown
With curses stark!
The Northern lion, that figure-head gray,
Now had to fall,
In pieces 'twas hewn, and the frigate lay
Like a shattered wall.
…
Repaired and refitted, its canvas it spread
Near Germany's coast,
With black-yellow flag and an eagle dread
In the lion's post.
When sailing we Kattegat sweep with our eyes,
'T is still evermore.
But a German admiral's frigate lies
Near Scania's shore.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH IJIJKLKLFMXMNONO PQPQRSRS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110111 11111 01011011111 0101 1110100111 011 110010111 111 111111101 10111 1101111011 1101 11111101011 0111 11101101101 101001 1111110101 111 01111001101 11101 1110101111 1111 01001100101 0101 1111101011 111 11001101111 1101 0101011011 1111 0101100101 10101 1 01001011011 11001 1110101101 00101 1101111101 11110 1010100101 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,258 |
Words | 234 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 25 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 503 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 116 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 84 Views
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"When Norway Would Not Help" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4447/when-norway-would-not-help>.
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