Analysis of The Titanic

Katharine Lee Bates 1859 (Falmouth) – 1929 (Wellesley)



As she sped from dawn to gloaming, a palace upon the sea,
Did the waves from her proud bows foaming whisper what port should be?
That her maiden voyage was tending to a haven hushed and deep,
Where after the shock and the rending she should moor at the wharf of sleep?
Oh, her name shall be tale and token to all the ships that sail,
How her mighty heart was broken by blow of a crystal flail,
How in majesty still peerless her helpless head she bowed
And in light and music, fearless, plunged to her purple shroud.
Did gleams and dreams half-heeded, while the days so lightly ran,
Awaken the glory seeded from God in the soul of man?
For touched with a shining chrism, with love's fine grace imbued,
Men turned them to heroisim as it were but habitude.
O midnight strange and solemn, when the icebergs stood at gaze,
Death on one pallid column, to watch our human ways,
And saw throned Death defeated by a greater lord than he,
Immortal Life who greeted home-comers from the sea.


Scheme AABBCCDDEEFDGGAA
Poetic Form
Metre 111111100100101 101101110101111 1010101101010101 11001001011110111 101111010110111 101011101110101 10100110010111 00101010110101 11011101011101 010010101100111 1110101111101 1111111011 1110101010111 11110101110101 01110101010111 0101110110101
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 973
Words 184
Sentences 7
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 48
Words per line (avg) 11
Letters per stanza (avg) 773
Words per stanza (avg) 182
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

55 sec read
67

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful Bates was born in Falmouth Massachusetts and lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton Massachusetts An historic plaque marks the site of her home The daughter of a Congregational pastor she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley While teaching there she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied She lived at Wellesley with Katharine Coman who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Comans death in 1915 It is debated if this relationship was an intimate lesbian relationship as different sources maintain or a platonic relationship called sometimes Boston marriages as the local historical society of her birthplace maintain more…

All Katharine Lee Bates poems | Katharine Lee Bates Books

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