Analysis of At Cape Schanck
James Lister Cuthbertson 1851 – 1910
Down to the lighthouse pillar
The rolling woodland comes,
Gay with the gold of she-oaks
And the green of the stunted gums,
With the silver-grey of honeysuckle,
With the wasted bracken red,
With a tuft of softest emerald
And a cloud-flecked sky o'erhead.
We climbed by ridge and boulder,
Umber and yellow scarred,
Out to the utmost precipice,
To the point that was ocean-barred,
Till we looked below on the fastness
Of the breeding eagle's nest,
And Cape Wollomai opened eastward
And the Otway on the west.
Over the mirror of azure
The purple shadows crept,
League upon league of rollers
Landward evermore swept,
And burst upon gleaming basalt,
And foamed in cranny and crack,
And mounted in sheets of silver,
And hurried reluctant back.
And the sea, so calm out yonder,
Wherever we turned our eyes,
Like the blast of an angel's trumpet
Rang out to the earth and skies,
Till the reefs and the rocky ramparts
Throbbed to the giant fray,
And the gullies and jutting headlands
Were bathed in a misty spray.
Oh, sweet in the distant ranges,
To the ear of inland men,
Is the ripple of falling water
In sassafras-haunted glen,
The stir in the ripening cornfield
That gently rustles and swells,
The wind in the wattle sighing,
The tinkle of cattle bells.
But best is the voice of ocean,
That strikes to the heart and brain,
That lulls with its passionate music
Trouble and grief and pain,
That murmurs the requiem sweetest
For those who have loved and lost,
And thunders a jubilant anthem
To brave hearts tempest-tossed.
That takes to its boundless bosom
The burden of all our care,
That whispers of sorrow vanquished,
Of hours that may yet be fair,
That tells of a Harbour of Refuge
Beyond life's stormy straits,
Of an infinite peace that gladdens,
Of an infinite love that waits.
Scheme | ABXBXCXC ADEDEFXF AGXGXHAH AIXIXJBJ XKAKXLXL XMXMXNON OPXPXQBQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110110 01011 1101111 00110101 101011100 1010101 10111010 001111 1111010 10101 1101100 10111101 111011010 1010101 0111010 001101 10010110 01011 1011110 10101 01011001 0101001 01001110 0100101 00111110 01011101 10111110 1110101 10100101 110101 00100101 0100101 11001010 101111 101011010 010101 01001001 110101 01001010 0101101 11101110 1110101 111110010 100101 110010010 1111101 010010010 111101 11111010 01011101 11011010 11011111 111010110 011101 11100111 11100111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,865 |
Words | 313 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 202 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 109 Views
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"At Cape Schanck" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20222/at-cape-schanck>.
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