Analysis of "Kate is Craz'd"
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
"There often wanders one, whom better days
Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed
With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound.
A serving-maid was she, and fell in love
With one who left her, went to sea, and died.
Her fancy followed him through foaming waves
To distant shores; and she would sit and weep
At what a sailor suffers; fancy too,
Delusive most where warmest wishes are,
Would oft anticipate his glad return,
And dream of transports she was not to know.
She heard the doleful tidings of his death—
And never smiled again! and now she roams
The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day,
And there, unless when charity forbids,
The livelong night. A tattered apron hides,
Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown
More tattered still; and both but ill conceal
A bosom heaved with never-ceasing sighs.
She begs an idle pin of all she meets,
And hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food,
Though pressed with hunger oft, or comelier clothes,
Though pinched with cold, asks never.—Kate is craz’d."
How wonderful! how beautiful! these words
Are but the usual recompense assigned
To usual efforts of the human mind.
And yet how little jars these mighty chords!
How soon but one uneasy hour affords
Space for disunion and for disarray,
To mar the music of an earlier day!
It is a fearful thing to live, yet be
That which is scarcely life the spirit fled—
Death at the heart—our nobler self is dead—
The reasoning and responsible, while we
Live, like the birds around, unconsciously.
God! in thy mercy keep us from such doom,
Let not our mind precede us to our tomb!
Scheme | XAXXXXXXXXXXXBXXXXXXXXA XCCDDBBEFFEEGG |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011101 1101011101 110111011 0101110101 1111011101 0101011101 1101011101 1101010101 11110101 110101101 0110111111 1101010111 0101010111 010111011 0101110001 011010101 1101010101 1101011101 0101110101 1111011111 0110011101 111101111 1111110111 1100110011 1101001001 11001010101 0111011101 11110101001 110100101 11010111001 1101011111 1111010101 11011010111 01000010011 110101100 1011011111 111010111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,669 |
Words | 324 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 23, 14 |
Lines Amount | 37 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 621 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 141 |
About this poem
Introduced by a quotation from Cowper, this poem is about a deranged woman called Kate Kearney. It is accompanied by a plate showing her wandering in the wild, painted by J. J. Jenkins and engraved by J. Thomson. it was published posthumously in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap book, 1840 (in 1839).
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Written on January 01, 1838
Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on March 11, 2024
Modified by Madeleine Quinn on March 11, 2024
- 1:37 min read
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""Kate is Craz'd"" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 15 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/182857/%22kate-is-craz%27d%22>.
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