Analysis of The Pilgrims
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.
--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky
And go forth naked under sun and rain
And work and wait and watch out all his years.
--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?
--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;
For if she be not in the spirit of men,
For if in the inward soul she hath no place,
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.
--O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?
For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,
That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.
--These have we not, who have one thing, the divine
Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.
--And ye shall die before your thrones be won.
--Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun
Shall move and shine without us, and we lie
Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,
But if the old world with all the old irons rent
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,
Life being so little and death so good to give.
--And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,
And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed
Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead
Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire
Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.
--But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,
That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;
When mother and father and tender sister and brother
And the old live love that was shall be as ye,
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.
--She shall be yet who is more than all these were,
Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.
--Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,
The venerable, in the past that is their prison,
In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,
Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?
--Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save.
--Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,
Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?
Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?
--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,
Than all things save the inexorable desire
Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.
--Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?
Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow.
Even this your dream, that by much tribulation
Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?
--Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,
Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;
But man to man, nation would turn to nation,
And the old life live, and the old great world be great.
--Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,
For what light think ye after life to see?
And if the world fare better will ye know?
And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?
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Scheme | XXABCCABDECXFFCX CCGCHHGC IICJKKCJ CCFELLFD AAMNOOMN PPXMAAMM QQCROOCR GGMKNNMK SSCTUUCT AACG |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110111111 100111101111 11110111111 110110101111 1010111111 111111111110 1011111111 1111011110 1101101111 1111110111 011101111 0101011 0111111101 0111111001 0111010101 0101011111 1111111010 111101010010 11111011111 11111001011 11001011111 01111001001 0111111011 1111101101 111100111010 111111001010 10111001001 1011111111 1101110111 1011111111 11111111001 1011110101 0111011111 10011001001 1101011011 1111111101 110111101101 1011111110 1111011111 110110011111 0111011111 110110100101 010111001010 0111011111 11101110111 110010110101 111100111010 10110011011 11111111110 111011101110 1101101101 11001001010010 00111111111 1011110111 11111111110 11011110101110 11111111110 101110101110 0100000111110 0010100011 110110111111 1100111011001 11110111110 111111100111 11110011101 101110101111 10101100101010 1001111111 111001010101 0101111101 111101000010 111110111 11111101110 11111111110 10111111010 1111110111 1110101101010 1100111110 11111011110 001110011111 11101110111 1111110111 0101110111 01110111101 1 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 4,442 |
Words | 787 |
Sentences | 34 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 5 |
Lines Amount | 85 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 308 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 79 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:57 min read
- 94 Views
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"The Pilgrims" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1421/the-pilgrims>.
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