Analysis of The South
Emma Lazarus 1849 (New York City) – 1887 (New York City)
Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies
Behold the Spirit of the musky South,
A creole with still-burning, languid eyes,
Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:
Swathed in spun gauze is she,
From fibres of her own anana tree.
Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,
By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:
'Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,
Like to the golden oriole's hanging nest,
Her airy hammock swings,
And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.
How beautiful she is! A tulip-wreath
Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:
Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,
Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,
While movelessly she lies
With lithe, lax, folded hands and heavy eyes.
Full well knows she how wide and fair extend
Her groves bright-flowered, her tangled everglades,
Majestic streams that indolently wend
Through lush savanna or dense forest shades,
Where the brown buzzard flies
To broad bayou 'neath hazy-golden skies.
Hers is the savage splendor of the swamp,
With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom,
Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp,
Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom-
Where from stale waters dead
Oft looms the great-jawed alligator's head.
Her wealth, her beauty, and the blight on these,-
Of all she is aware: luxuriant woods,
Fresh, living, sunlit, in her dream she sees;
And ever midst those verdant solitudes
The soldier's wooden cross,
O'ergrown by creeping tendrils and rank moss.
Was her a dream of empire? was it sin?
And is it well that all was borne in vain?
She knows no more than one who slow doth win,
After fierce fever, conscious life again,
Too tired, too weak, too sad,
By the new light to be stirred or glad.
From rich sea-islands fringing her green shore,
From broad plantations where swart freemen bend
Bronzed backs in willing labor, from her store
Of golden fruit, from stream, from town, ascend
Life-currents of pure health:
Her aims shall be subserved with boundless wealth.
Yet now how listless and how still she lies,
Like some half-savage, dusky Indian queen,
Rocked in her hammock 'neath her native skies,
With the pathetic, passive, broken mien
Of one who, sorely proved,
Great-souled, hath suffered much and much hath loved!
But look! along the wide-branched, dewy glade
Glimmers the dawn: the light palmetto-trees
And cypresses reissue from the shade,
And SHE hath wakened. Through clear air she sees
The pledge, the brightening ray,
And leaps from dreams to hail the coming day.
Scheme | ABABCC DEDEFF XGXGAA HIHIAA XJXJKK DXDALL MXMXNN OHOHPP AQAQXX RDRDSS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (22%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 100111101 0101010101 0101110101 01001001101 101111 1110111 0111011111 1111010101 11010101 110101101 010101 0101010111 1100110101 1101001101 1101000111 1101100101 1111 1111010101 1111110101 0111001010 0101111 1101011101 101101 1110110101 0101010101 1111001101 1111010101 11101011 111101 1101111 0101000111 11110101001 110100111 01011101 010101 11101011 10011100111 0111111101 1111111111 1011010101 1101111 101111111 111101011 111011101 1101010101 1101111101 110111 011111101 1111001111 1111011001 1001010101 1001010101 111101 1111010111 1101011101 1001010101 01010101 011111111 0101001 0111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,455 |
Words | 415 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 199 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 41 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:05 min read
- 71 Views
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"The South" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/12736/the-south>.
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