Analysis of Amalfi. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fourth)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.
'T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?
Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands.
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof;
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain,
And as indolent as he.
Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land,
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast?
Where the pomp of camp and court?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers?
Where the merchants with their wares,
And their gallant brigantines
Sailing safely into port
Chased by corsair Algerines?
Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast,
Are those splendors of the past,
And the commerce and the crowd!
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays,
Swallowed by the engulfing waves;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies:
Even cities have their graves!
This is an enchanted land!
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand:
Further still and furthermost
On the dim discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lonely land of doom.
On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these,
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow,
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o'er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down,
Into caverns cool and deep!
Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice,
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.
Scheme | AABCBBC DEFDEF BGGBHHIJJI KKLKGGLMMANNA XOCPPOQRRCQC STTSCCUVVWWU PXXPBXWYWY HHCZZXCCX1 1 2 2 DD2 ZZ3 4 3 A4 A |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10100111 1010101 1010101 1010101 11001 1010011 001101 0010101 1110001 10010101 01101 1011101 1010101 1101101 1010101 1010101 101111 1011111 1011101 110101 1010101 110001 1111111 1110011 1010101 1110101 1011101 101001 1010101 1010111 10010111 1110101 0111101 1110111 0010111 0110011 111011 1011101 1010101 10010101 1110101 1110101 1011101 1010111 1010111 01101 1010011 11101 1010111 1010101 111101 0010001 1010101 1010101 10100101 1010101 10101001 1011101 1010101 1010111 1110101 101101 10111 1110111 10101 1010101 111101 0110101 1110101 1110111 1110101 1010111 1110111 1010101 1011011 0011011 1010101 001011 1011111 101111 001001 10101101 0010111 0111101 1101 0110101 1011111 1001111 101011 0010101 11100101 1110101 101110 0010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,766 |
Words | 509 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 6, 10, 13, 12, 12, 10, 16, 8 |
Lines Amount | 94 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 251 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 56 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:33 min read
- 112 Views
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