Analysis of The Last Song of Sappho
Felicia Dorothea Hemans 1793 (Liverpool, Lancashire) – 1835 (Dublin, County Dublin)
SOUND on, thou dark unslumbering sea!
My dirge is in thy moan;
My spirit finds response in thee,
To its own ceaseless cry-'Alone, alone !'
Yet send me back one other word,
Ye tones that never cease !
Oh ! let your secret caves be stirr'd,
And say, dark waters! will ye give me peace?
Away! my weary soul hath sought
In vain one echoing sigh,
One answer to consuming thought
In human hearts-and will the wave reply ?
Sound on, thou dark, unslumbering sea!
Sound in thy scorn and pride !
I ask not, alien world, from thee,
What my own kindred earth hath still denied.
And yet I loved that earth so well,
With all its lovely things!
-Was it for this the death-wind fell
On my rich lyre, and quench'd its living strings?
-Let them lie silent at my feet !
Since broken even as they,
The heart whose music made them sweet,
Hath pour'd on desert-sands its wealth away.
Yet glory's light hath touch'd my name,
The laurel-wreath is mine-
-With a lone heart, a weary frame-
O restless deep ! I come to make them thine !
Give to that crown, that burning crown,
Place in thy darkest hold!
Bury my anguish, my renown,
With hidden wrecks, lost gems, and wasted gold.
Thou sea-bird on the billow's crest,
Thou hast thy love, thy home;
They wait thee in the quiet nest,
And I, the unsought, unwatch'd-for-I too come!
I, with this winged nature fraught,
These visions wildly free,
This boundless love, this fiery thought-
Alone I come-oh ! give me peace, dark sea!
Scheme | Abab cdcd efef Agag hihi jkjk lmlm nono pxpx eaea |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (90%) Etheree (30%) |
Metre | 111111 111011 11010101 111101101 11111101 111101 11110111 0111011111 01110111 0111001 11010101 0101010101 111111 101101 111100111 1111011101 01111111 111101 11110111 1111011101 11110111 1101011 01110111 1111011101 1111111 010111 10110101 1101111111 11111101 101101 10110101 1101110101 1111011 111111 11100101 010111111 1111101 110101 110111001 0111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,495 |
Words | 262 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 110 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 15, 2023
- 1:20 min read
- 103 Views
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