Analysis of The Landing
Padraic Colum 1881 (County Longford) – 1972 (Enfield)
THE great ship lantern-girdled.
The tender standing by;
The waning stars cloud-shrouded,
The land that we descry!
That pale land is our homeland,
And we are bound therefor;
On her lawns nor in her coppice
No birds as yet make stir.
But birds are
flying round us,
The white birds of the sea
It is the breeze of morning,
This that comes hummingly.
And like the talk that comes from
A room where a babe is born
Such clearness and such mystery
Are in words said on the morn,
Where, like a nation cloven,
In two our ranks divide:
One half on the high ship's bulwark,
One half by the tender's side;
Where, like a people sundered,
Who yet have each other's hail,
Faces look down from the bulwarks,
And look up from the tender's rail;
And names are called and spoken
'Nancy,' 'Mary,' 'Owen'!
'Good-bye, and keep your promise!'
'Farewell to you, my son!'
They are more spirit-stirring
Than any words that are
Remembered from the spokesmen
Of any avatar!
'Oh, all I had to tell you!'
'Ellen,' 'Michael,' 'Joan'-
'Good-bye, and God be with you!'
'And can it be you're gone!'
The great ship lantern-girdled,
Her engines thresh, immerse
The great ship that had station
Takes motion for her course.
Her little course the tender,
Our little ship, goes on
The stars they are fast waning,
But we'll land ere 'tis the dawn!
Green, greener grows the foreland
Across the slate-dark sea,
And I'll see faces, places
That have been dreams to me!
Scheme | Axab abcb bccde xfbf faxa aece ggcg dbxb hxhi Acgc bxdi accx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011101 010101 0101110 01111 1111101 01111 1011001 111111 111 1011 011101 1101110 1111 0101111 0110111 1101100 1011101 110101 0110101 11101110 111011 110101 1111101 1011101 0111011 0111010 1011 1101110 11111 1111010 110111 0101010 11010 1111111 1011 1101111 011111 011101 010101 0111110 110101 0101010 1010111 0111110 1111101 110101 010111 0111010 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,382 |
Words | 266 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 90 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 21 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 80 Views
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