Analysis of The Slave's Dream
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Beside the ungathered rice he lay,
His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his Native Land.
Wide through the landscape of his dreams
The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain-road.
He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
They held him by the hand!--
A tear burst from the sleeper's lids
And fell into the sand.
And then at furious speed he rode
Along the Niger's bank;
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
And, with a martial clank,
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel
Smiting his stallion's flank.
Before him, like a blood-red flag,
The bright flamingoes flew;
>From morn till night he followed their flight,
O'er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,
And the ocean rose to view.
At night he heard the lion roar,
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.
The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty;
And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the driver's whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!
Scheme | ABXBCB XDXDXD XBXBXB DEXEXE XFXFXF XGXGXG XHXHXH XACAXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101111 110011 1111111 110001 010010111 111101 1101111 01101 01011101 110111 01010010 010101 11111111 010101 11111111 111101 0111011 010101 011100111 01011 11010101 010101 11111111011 1111 01110111 0111 111111011 1011011 11101111 0010111 11110101 000101 0010111101 011101 01110100111 1010111 010111001 101100 0011010101 1011101 111001101 111001 11110101 1010111 1110100111 0110101 01110101 1100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,543 |
Words | 290 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 155 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Written on June 06, 2017
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified by valentin_s on June 07, 2021
- 1:28 min read
- 267 Views
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