Analysis of The wanderer

Eugene Field 1850 (St. Louis) – 1895 (Chicago)



Upon a mountain height, far from the sea,
   I found a shell,
And to my listening ear the lonely thing
Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing,
   Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell.

How came the shell upon that mountain height?
   Ah, who can say
Whether there dropped by some too careless hand,
Or whether there cast when Ocean swept the Land,
   Ere the Eternal had ordained the Day?

Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep,
   One song it sang,--
Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide,
Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide,--
   Ever with echoes of the ocean rang.

And as the shell upon the mountain height
   Sings of the sea,
So do I ever, leagues and leagues away,--
So do I ever, wandering where I may,--
   Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee.


Scheme ABCCB DEFFE XGHHG DAEEA
Poetic Form Tetractys  (40%)
Metre 0101011101 1101 01110010101 1001110111 1001110111 1101011101 1111 1011111101 11011110101 1001010101 1111111101 1111 11010100101 1101010101 1011010101 0101010101 1101 1111010101 11110100111 1111111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 761
Words 153
Sentences 10
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 141
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
109

Eugene Field

Eugene Field, Sr. was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. more…

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