Analysis of The Burial Of The Poet

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)



In the old churchyard of his native town,
And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall,
We laid him in the sleep that comes to all,
And left him to his rest and his renown.
The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down
White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall;--
The dead around him seemed to wake, and call
His name, as worthy of so white a crown.
And now the moon is shining on the scene,
And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er
With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,
As once the winding-sheet of Saladin
With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more
Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.


Scheme ABBAACBADEFGHF
Poetic Form
Metre 001111101 00001010101 1110011111 0111110101 01110111011 1101101111 0101111101 1111011101 0101110101 00111111010 1111101 1101011100 1101001111 01000010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 595
Words 117
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 468
Words per stanza (avg) 114
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

35 sec read
114

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. more…

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