Analysis of The Spirit Of Great Joan

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919



Back of each soldier who fights for France,
Aye, back of each woman and man
Who toils and prays through these long tense days.
Is the spirit of Great Joan.
For the love she gave, and the life she gave,
In the eyes of God sufficed
To crown her with light, and power, and might,
That made her second to Christ.

And so in that hour at the Marne she came,
To the seeing eyes of men;
And the blind of view still felt and knew
That her spirit had come again.
And she will come in each crucial hour
And joy shall follow despair,
For Joan sees her France on its knees
And she hears the voice of its prayer.

There is no hate in the heart of France,
But a mighty moral force
That takes its stand for her worshipped land,
And cannot be swerved from its course.
For this is the way with France to-day,
Her courage comes from faith,
And she bends her knee ere she straightens her arm;
In her forward rush toward death.

A jungle of beasts in the heart of the Hun-
War to the world laid bare.
And war has revealed, that France concealed,
Only the lion's lair.
A lioness fighting to save her own,
She fights as a lioness can,
And strength to the end shall the Unseen send,
In the spirit of Great Joan.


Scheme ABXCXDXD XEXEXFXF AGXGXXXX XFXFCBXC
Poetic Form
Metre 111101111 11111001 110111111 1010111 1011100111 0011101 1101101001 1101011 01011010111 1010111 001111101 10101101 0111011010 0111001 11101111 01101111 111100111 1010101 111110101 01011111 111011111 010111 01101111001 00101011 01011001101 110111 011011101 100101 01101101 111011 0110110011 0010111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,162
Words 236
Sentences 11
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 230
Words per stanza (avg) 59
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

1:11 min read
102

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet. more…

All Ella Wheeler Wilcox poems | Ella Wheeler Wilcox Books

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