Analysis of Kilmeny (A Song of the Trawlers)
Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)
Dark, dark, lay the drifters, against the red west,
As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;
And the oily green waters were rocking to rest
When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide.
And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,
For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.
It was well nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,
And nobody knew hwere Kilmeny had been.
She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,
And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,
And a secret her skipper had never confessed,
Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride;
And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome,
The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.
O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home,
But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest,
With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;
But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast;
And "Well done,Kilmeny!" the admiral cried.
Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come,
And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;
But late in the evening Kilmeny came home,
And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,
Though they sing all night to old England, their queen,
Late, late in the evening Kilmeny came home,
And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
Scheme | aaabcdce ababcece ababxdcE cdcE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101001011 1111110111 001011001011 1111101101 011111011 101011011001 1111011111 0111111 10110111101 001101111101 001001011001 11011111011 001011001101 01011001101 11111111011 1111111 1111111101 101101101011 111101101101 01101001 111011001011 0110110110 110010111 0111111 10100111101 11111111011 110010111 0111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,341 |
Words | 253 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 260 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 62 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:16 min read
- 54 Views
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"Kilmeny (A Song of the Trawlers)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1151/kilmeny-%28a-song-of-the-trawlers%29>.
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