Analysis of In The Harbour: Prelude
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
As treasures that men seek,
Deep buried in sea-sands,
Vanish if they but speak,
And elude their eager hands,
So ye escape and slip,
O songs, and fade away,
When the word is on my lip
To interpret what ye say.
Were it not better, then,
To let the treasures rest
Hid from the eyes of men,
Locked in their iron chest?
I have but marked the place,
But half the secret told,
That, following this slight trace,
Others may find the gold.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
Metre | 110111 110011 101111 0011101 110101 110101 1011111 1010111 011101 110101 110111 101101 111101 110101 1100111 101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 423 |
Words | 85 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 83 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 21 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 25 sec read
- 375 Views
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"In The Harbour: Prelude" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18656/in-the-harbour%3A-prelude>.
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