Analysis of O Ship of State
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee, -are all with thee!
Scheme | AABBACCDEEDFFGGHHIIJBI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 11110101 01001111 11011101 11010111 11110111 11011111 11110101 1111101 01010101 01010111 11110101 11010101 11010101 01011101 0111011 01111101 11111101 1011011111 101101101101 10101010101 11111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 820 |
Words | 161 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 22 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 613 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 159 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 1,049 Views
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"O Ship of State" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18695/o-ship-of-state>.
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