Analysis of And the Greatest of These Is War
James Weldon Johnson 1871 (Jacksonville) – 1938 (Wiscasset)
Around the council-board of Hell, with Satan at their head,
The Three Great Scourges of humanity sat.
Gaunt Famine, with hollow cheek and voice, arose and spoke,—
'O, Prince, I have stalked the earth,
And my victims by ten thousands I have slain,
I have smitten old and young.
Mouths of the helpless old moaning for bread, I have filled with dust;
And I have laughed to see a crying babe tug at the shriveling breast
Of its mother, dead and cold.
I have heard the cries and prayers of men go up to a tearless sky,
And fall back upon an earth of ashes;
But, heedless, I have gone on with my work.
'Tis thus, O, Prince, that I have scourged mankind.'
And Satan nodded his head.
Pale Pestilence, with stenchful breath, then spoke and said, —
'Great Prince, my brother, Famine, attacks the poor.
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He is most terrible against the helpless and the old.
But I have made a charnel-house of the mightiest cities of men.
When I strike, neither their stores of gold or of grain avail.
With a breath I lay low their strongest, and wither up their fairest.
I come upon them without warning, lancing invisible death.
From me they flee with eyes and mouths distended;
I poison the air for which they gasp, and I strike them down fleeing.
'Tis thus, great Prince, that I have scourged mankind.'
And Satan nodded his head.
Then the red monster, War, rose up and spoke,—
His blood-shot eyes glared 'round him, and his thundering voice
Echoed through the murky vaults of Hell. —
'O, mighty Prince, my brothers, Famine and Pestilence,
Have slain their thousands and ten thousands,— true;
But the greater their victories have been,
The more have they wakened in Man's breast
The God-like attributes of sympathy, of brotherhood and love
And made of him a searcher after wisdom.
But I arouse in Man the demon and the brute,
I plant black hatred in his heart and red revenge.
From the summit of fifty thousand years of upward climb
I haul him down to the level of the start, back to the wolf.
I give him claws.
I set his teeth into his brother's throat.
I make him drunk with his brother's blood.
And I laugh ho! ho! while he destroys himself.
O, mighty Prince, not only do I slay,
But I draw Man hellward.'
And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said, —
'O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief.'
And Hell rang with the acclamation of the Fiends.
Scheme | axbxxxxcdxxxeA axxdxxxxxxeA bxxxxxcxxxxxxxxxxxa axx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010111110111 01110101001 1101101010101 1111101 01101110111 1110101 110101101111111 01111101011101001 1110101 111010111111011 0110111110 111111111 1111111111 0101011 11001111101 11110100101 1 11110001010001 1111011101001011 11110111111101 1011111100101110 1101101101001001 11111101010 1100111110111110 1111111111 0101011 1011011101 1111111011001 101010111 1101110100100 1111001101 1010110011 01111011 01110110011001 01110101010 110101010001 111100110101 10101101011101 111110101011101 1111 1111011101 111111101 01111110101 1101110111 11111 0101111101 1111010101001111 01110010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,331 |
Words | 442 |
Sentences | 29 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 12, 19, 3 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 454 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 108 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:12 min read
- 109 Views
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