Analysis of The Sea-Child
Eliza Cook 1818 (London Road, Southwark) – 1889 (Wimbledon)
HE crawls to the cliff and plays on a brink
Where every eye but his own would shrink;
No music he hears but the billow’s noise,
And shells and weeds are his only toys.
No lullaby can the mother find
To sing him to rest like the moaning wind;
And the louder it wails and the fiercer it sweeps,
The deeper he breathes and the sounder he sleeps.
And now his wandering feet can reach
The rugged tracks of the desolate beach;
Creeping about like a Triton imp,
To find the haunts of the crab and shrimp.
He clings, with none to guide or help,
To the furthest ridge of slippery kelp;
And his bold heart glows while he stands and mocks
The seamew’s cry on the jutting rocks.
Few years have wan’d—and now he stands
Bareheaded on the shelving sands.
A boat is moor’d, but his young hands cope
Right well with the twisted cable rope;
He frees the craft, she kisses the tide;
The boy has climb’d her beaten side:
She drifts—she floats—he shouts with glee;
His soul hath claim’d its right on the sea.
’T is vain to tell him the howling breath
Rides over the waters with wreck and death:
He ’ll say there ’s more of fear and pain
On the plague-ridden earth than the storm-lash’d main.
’T would be as wise to spend thy power
In trying to lure the bee from the flower,
The lark from the sky, or the worm from the grave,
As in weaning the Sea-Child from the wave.
Scheme | AABBCCDD EEFFGGHH IIJJKKLL MMNNOOPP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110101101 1100111111 1101110101 010111101 11010101 1111110101 001011001011 01011001011 011100111 0101101001 100110101 110110101 11111111 1010111001 0111111101 01110101 11110111 110101 011111111 111010101 110111001 01110101 11111111 111111101 1111110101 1100101101 1111111101 10110110111 1111111110 01011011010 01101101101 1010011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,404 |
Words | 261 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 261 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 65 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 81 Views
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