Analysis of In Praise of New Netherland
Jacob Steendam 1615 (Kniphausen) – 1672 (Batavia)
"You poor, who know not how your living to obtain;
You affluent, who seek in mind to be content;
Choose you New Netherland, which no one shall disdain;
Before you time and stregth here fruitlessly are spent.
The birds obscure the sky, so numerous in their flight;
The animals roam wild, and flatten down the ground;
The fish swarm in the waters and exclude the light;
The oysters there, than which none better can be found;
Are piled up, heap on heap, till islands they attain;
And vegetation clothes the forest, mean and plain.
...a living view does always meet your eye,
Of Eden, and the promised land of Jacob's seed;
Who would not, then, in such a formed community,
Desire to be a Freeman; and the rights decreed,
To each and every one, by Amstel's burgher lords,
T'enjoy? and treat with honor what their rule awards?"
Scheme | ABAB CDCDAA XEXEFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111110101 110011011110 111100111101 011101110011 0101011100011 010011010101 011001000101 010111110111 111111110101 00101010101 010111111 110001011101 111101010100 0101101000101 110100111101 1010111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 815 |
Words | 150 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 212 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 118 Views
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"In Praise of New Netherland" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19948/in-praise-of-new-netherland>.
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