Analysis of Ode for a Master Mariner Ashore
Louise Imogen Guiney 1861 (Roxbury) – 1920
THERE in his room, whene’er the moon looks in,
And silvers now a shell, and now a fin,
And o’er his chart glides like an argosy,
Quiet and old sits he.
Danger! he hath grown homesick for thy smile.
Where hidest thou the while, heart’s boast,
Strange face of beauty sought and lost,
Star-face that lured him out from boyhood’s isle?
Blown clear from dull indoors, his dreams behold
Night-water smoke and sparkle as of old,
The taffrail lurch, the sheets triumphant toss
Their phosphor-flowers across.
Towards ocean’s either rim the long-exiled
Wears on, till stunted cedars throw
A lace-like shadow over snow,
Or tropic fountains wash their agates wild.
Awhile, play up and down the briny spar
Odors of Surinam and Zanzibar,
Till blithely thence he ploughs, in visions new,
The Labradorian blue;
All homeless hurricanes about him break;
The purples of spent day he sees
From Samos to the Hebrides,
And drowned men dancing darkly in his wake.
Where the small deadly foam-caps, well descried,
Top, tier on tier, the hundred-mountained tide,
Away, and far away, his pride is borne,
Riding the noisy morn,
Plunges, and preens her wings, and laughs to know
The helm and tightening halyards still
Follow the urging of his will,
And scoff at sullen earth a league below.
Mischance hath barred him from his heirdom high,
And shackled him with many an inland tie,
And of his only wisdom made a jibe
Amid an alien tribe:
No wave abroad but moans his fallen state.
The trade-wind ranges now, the trade-wind roars!
Why is it on a yellowing page he pores?
Ah, why this hawser fast to a garden gate?
Thou friend so long withdrawn, so deaf, so dim,
Familiar Danger, O forget not him!
Repeat of thine evangel yet the whole
Unto his subject soul,
Who suffers no such palsy of her drouth,
Nor hath so tamely worn her chain,
But she may know that voice again,
And shake the reefs with answer of her mouth.
O give him back, before his passion fail,
The singing cordage and the hollow sail,
And level with those aged eyes let be
The bright unsteady sea;
And move like any film from off his brain
The pasture wall, the boughs that run
Their evening arches to the sun,
The hamlet spire across the sown champaign;
And on the shut space and the trivial hour,
Turn the great floods! and to thy spousal bower,
With rapt arrest and solemn loitering,
Him whom thou lovedst bring:
That he, thy faithful one, with praising lip,
Not having, at the last, less grace
Of thee than had his roving race,
Sum up his strength to perish with a ship.
Scheme | AABBCDXC EEFFGHHG IIJJKLLK DXMMHNNH OOPPQRRQ SSTTUVXU WWBBVXXV YYZZ1 2 2 1 |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110110 0101010101 0111111100 100111 101111111 1110111 11110101 111111111 111111101 1101010111 011010101 111001 0110101011 11110101 0111101 1101011101 011101011 10101010 1101110101 011 110100111 01011111 11010100 0111010011 101101111 111101011 0101011111 100101 1001010111 01010011 10010111 0111010101 11111111 0101110111 0111010101 0111001 1101111101 0111010111 11110100111 1111110101 1111011111 0101010111 01111101 101011 1101110101 1111101 11111101 0101110101 1111011101 0101000101 010111111 010101 0111011111 01010111 11010101 0101010101 010110010010 10110111010 1101010100 11111 1111011101 11010111 11111101 1111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,475 |
Words | 451 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 246 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 56 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 27, 2023
- 2:15 min read
- 88 Views
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"Ode for a Master Mariner Ashore" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/26164/ode-for-a-master-mariner-ashore>.
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