Analysis of Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. The Musician's Tale; The Saga of King Olaf XIV. -- The Crew Of The Long Serpent
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Safe at anchor in Drontheim bay
King Olaf's fleet assembled lay,
And, striped with white and blue,
Downward fluttered sail and banner,
As alights the screaming lanner;
Lustily cheered, in their wild manner,
The Long Serpent's crew.
Her forecastle man was Ulf the Red,
Like a wolf's was his shaggy head,
His teeth as large and white;
His beard, of gray and russet blended,
Round as a swallow's nest descended;
As standard-bearer he defended
Olaf's flag in the fight.
Near him Kolbiorn had his place,
Like the King in garb and face,
So gallant and so hale;
Every cabin-boy and varlet
Wondered at his cloak of scarlet;
Like a river, frozen and star-lit,
Gleamed his coat of mail.
By the bulkhead, tall and dark,
Stood Thrand Rame of Thelemark,
A figure gaunt and grand;
On his hairy arm imprinted
Was an anchor, azure-tinted;
Like Thor's hammer, huge and dinted
Was his brawny hand.
Einar Tamberskelver, bare
To the winds his golden hair,
By the mainmast stood;
Graceful was his form, and slender,
And his eyes were deep and tender
As a woman's, in the splendor
Of her maidenhood.
In the fore-hold Biorn and Bork
Watched the sailors at their work:
Heavens! how they swore!
Thirty men they each commanded,
Iron-sinewed, horny-handed,
Shoulders broad, and chests expanded.
Tugging at the oar.
These, and many more like these,
With King Olaf sailed the seas,
Till the waters vast
Filled them with a vague devotion,
With the freedom and the motion,
With the roll and roar of ocean
And the sounding blast.
When they landed from the fleet,
How they roared through Drontheim's street,
Boisterous as the gale!
How they laughed and stamped and pounded,
Till the tavern roof resounded,
And the host looked on astounded
As they drank the ale!
Never saw the wild North Sea
Such a gallant company
Sail its billows blue!
Never, while they cruised and quarrelled,
Old King Gorm, or Blue-Tooth Harald,
Owned a ship so well apparelled,
Boasted such a crew!
Scheme | AABCCCB DDEFFFE GGHDXXH IIJKKDJ LLXCCCD XXMFFFM NNOPPPO QQHKDKH RRBDXDB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Burns stanza (65%) |
Metre | 1110011 1110101 011101 10101010 110101 1101110 01101 0111101 10111101 111101 111101010 11011010 110101010 11001 111111 1010101 110011 10010101 10111110 101010011 11111 101101 11111 010101 11101010 11101010 1110101 11101 1011 1011101 1011 10111010 01101010 10100010 101 0011101 1010111 10111 10111010 1011010 10101010 10101 1010111 1110101 10101 11101010 10100010 10101110 00101 1110101 111111 100101 11101010 101011 00111010 11101 1010111 1010100 11101 1011101 11111110 101111 10101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,890 |
Words | 336 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 63 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 169 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:43 min read
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"Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. The Musician's Tale; The Saga of King Olaf XIV. -- The Crew Of The Long Serpent" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18760/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-%3A-part-1.-the-musician%27s-tale%3B-the-saga-of-king-olaf-xiv.----the-crew-of-the-long-serpent>.
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