Analysis of Where Shall We Land
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
'_Where shall we land you, sweet_?'--Swinburne.
All listlessly we float
Out seaward in the boat
That beareth Love.
Our sails of purest snow
Bend to the blue below
And to the blue above.
Where shall we land?
We drift upon a tide
Shoreless on every side,
Save where the eye
Of Fancy sweeps far lands
Shelved slopingly with sands
Of gold and porphyry.
Where shall we land?
The fairy isles we see,
Loom up so mistily--
So vaguely fair,
We do not care to break
Fresh bubbles in our wake
To bend our course for there.
Where shall we land?
The warm winds of the deep
Have lulled our sails to sleep,
And so we glide
Careless of wave or wind,
Or change of any kind,
Or turn of any tide.
Where shall we land?
We droop our dreamy eyes
Where our reflection lies
Steeped in the sea,
And, in an endless fit
Of languor, smile on it
And its sweet mimicry.
Where shall we land?
'Where shall we land?' God's grace!
I know not any place
So fair as this--
Swung here between the blue
Of sea and sky, with you
To ask me, with a kiss,
'Where shall we land?'
Scheme | a bbcadcE ffxgghE hdijjiE kkfllfE mmhnnhE oopqqpE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111 110011 110001 111 1011101 110101 010101 1111 110101 111001 1101 110111 1111 110100 1111 010111 1111 1101 111111 1100101 1110111 1111 011101 1110111 0111 101111 111101 111101 1111 1110101 1100101 1001 001101 11111 011100 1111 111111 111101 1111 110101 110111 111101 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,001 |
Words | 207 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 18 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 113 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 88 Views
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"Where Shall We Land" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21190/where-shall-we-land>.
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