Analysis of Sacred to the Memory of “Unknown”
Oh, the wild black swans fly westward still,
While the sun goes down in glory—
And away o’er lonely plain and hill
Still runs the same old story:
The sheoaks sigh it all day long—
It is safe in the Big Scrub’s keeping—
’Tis the butcher-birds’ and the bell-birds’ song
In the gum where ‘Unknown’ lies sleeping—
(It is heard in the chat of the soldier-birds
O’er the grave where ‘Unknown’ lies sleeping).
Ah! the Bushmen knew not his name or land,
Or the shame that had sent him here—
But the Bushmen knew by the dead man’s hand
That his past life lay not near.
The law of the land might have watched for him,
Or a sweetheart, wife, or mother;
But they bared their heads, and their eyes were dim,
For he might have been a brother!
(Ah! the death he died brought him near to them,
For he might have been a brother.)
Oh, the wild black swans to the westward fade,
And the sunset burns to ashes,
And three times bright on an eastern range
The light of a big star flashes,
Like a signal sent to a distant strand
Where a dead man’s love sits weeping.
And the night comes grand to the Great Lone Land
O’er the grave where ‘Unknown’ lies sleeping,
And the big white stars in their clusters blaze
O’er the Bush where ‘Unknown’ lies sleeping.
Scheme | ababcdcdxDexexfgfGxG xxxxedeDxd |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 101111101 10111010 001110101 1101110 0111111 111001110 1010100111 001101110 11100110101 101101110 1010111111 10111111 1010110111 1111111 0110111111 1011110 1111101101 11111010 1011111111 11111010 1011110101 0011110 011111101 01101110 1010110101 10111110 0011110111 101101110 0011101101 101101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,258 |
Words | 237 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 20, 10 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 472 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 117 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:11 min read
- 253 Views
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"Sacred to the Memory of “Unknown”" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17903/sacred-to-the-memory-of-%E2%80%9Cunknown%E2%80%9D>.
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