Analysis of Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Interlude IV.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
And then the blue-eyed Norseman told
A Saga of the days of old.
'There is,' said he, 'a wondrous book
Of Legends in the old Norse tongue,
Of the dead kings of Norroway,--
Legends that once were told or sung
In many a smoky fireside nook
Of Iceland, in the ancient day,
By wandering Saga-man or Scald;
Heimskringla is the volume called;
And he who looks may find therein
The story that I now begin.'
And in each pause the story made
Upon his violin he played,
As an appropriate interlude,
Fragments of old Norwegian tunes
That bound in one the separate runes,
And held the mind in perfect mood,
Entwining and encircling all
The strange and antiquated rhymes
with melodies of olden times;
As over some half-ruined wall,
Disjointed and about to fall,
Fresh woodbines climb and interlace,
And keep the loosened stones in place.
Scheme | AABCXCBXDDEE FFGHHGIJJIIKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0101111 01010111 11110101 11000111 101111 10110111 010010101 11000101 110010111 110101 01111101 01011101 00110101 01100111 11010010 1011101 11010101 01010011 1001001 0101001 11001101 11011101 01000111 111001 01010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 807 |
Words | 151 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 13 |
Lines Amount | 25 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 325 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 73 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 03, 2023
- 44 sec read
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"Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Interlude IV." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18744/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-%3A-part-1.-interlude-iv.>.
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