Analysis of To Charles Sumner
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong
Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear
My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer
Borne upon all our Northern winds along;
If I have failed to join the fickle throng
In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong
In victory, surprised in thee to find
Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace combined;
That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang,
From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang,
Barbing the arrows of his native tongue
With the spent shafts Latona's archer flung,
To smite the Python of our land and time,
Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime,
Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs
Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings,
And on the shrine of England's freedom laid
The gifts of Cumve and of Delphi's' shade,--
Small need hast thou of words of praise from me.
Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess
That, even though silent, I have not the less
Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree
With the large future which I shaped for thee,
When, years ago, beside the summer sea,
White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall
Baffled and broken from the rocky wall,
That, to the menace of the brawling flood,
Opposed alone its massive quietude,
Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor vine
Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine,
Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think
That night-scene by the sea prophetical,
(For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs,
And through her pictures human fate divines),
That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink
In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall
In the white light of heaven, the type of one
Who, momently by Error's host assailed,
Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed;
And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all
The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done!
Scheme | ABCAAADDEEFFGGHHIIJKKJJJLLMDNNOLPHOLQRRLQ |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111101 1101110111 11110100101 10111010101 1111110101 011101111 0100010111 1101011101 111101101 111101011 101011101 10111101 11010110101 110101111 10111011 1001110111 0101110101 01110111 1111111111 1111110111 11011011101 01111100101 1011011111 1101010101 1001110111 1001010101 1101010101 01011101 1101110111 1111000011 1011111011 1111011 1101010001 010101011 111110101 01001010101 00111100111 1111101 1111011101 01010100101 0101010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,803 |
Words | 327 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 41 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,450 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 324 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 68 Views
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"To Charles Sumner" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23244/to-charles-sumner>.
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