Analysis of Enceladus. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Second)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Under Mount Etna he lies,
It is slumber, it is not death;
For he struggles at times to arise,
And above him the lurid skies
Are hot with his fiery breath.
The crags are piled on his breast,
The earth is heaped on his head;
But the groans of his wild unrest,
Though smothered and half suppressed,
Are heard, and he is not dead.
And the nations far away
Are watching with eager eyes;
They talk together and say,
'To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
Euceladus will arise!
And the old gods, the austere
Oppressors in their strength,
Stand aghast and white with fear
At the ominous sounds they hear,
And tremble, and mutter, 'At length!'
Ah me! for the land that is sown
With the harvest of despair!
Where the burning cinders, blown
From the lips of the overthrown
Enceladus, fill the air.
Where ashes are heaped in drifts
Over vineyard and field and town,
Whenever he starts and lifts
His head through the blackened rifts
Of the crags that keep him down.
See, see! the red light shines!
'T is the glare of his awful eyes!
And the storm-wind shouts through the pines
Of Alps and of Apennines,
'Enceladus, arise!'
Scheme | ABAAB CDCCD EAEEA FGFXG HIHHI JKJJK LALAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011011 11101111 111011101 00110101 11111001 0111111 0111111 10111101 1100101 1101111 0010101 1101101 1101001 1100111 1101 0011001 010011 1010111 10100111 01001011 11101111 1010101 1010101 1011001 1101 1101101 10100101 0101101 1110101 1011111 110111 110111101 00111101 11011 101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,077 |
Words | 203 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 35 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 122 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 133 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Enceladus. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Second)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18574/enceladus.-%28birds-of-passage.-flight-the-second%29>.
Discuss this Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In