Analysis of The Haunted Oak



Pray why are you so bare, so bare,  
   Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;
  And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
   Runs a shudder over me?
  My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
   And sap ran free in my veins,
  But I say in the moonlight dim and weird
   A guiltless victim's pains.
  They'd charged him with the old, old crime,
  And set him fast in jail:
 Oh, why does the dog howl all night long,
  And why does the night wind wail?
 He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath,
  And he raised his hand to the sky;
 But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear,
  And the steady tread drew nigh.
 Who is it rides by night, by night,
  Over the moonlit road?
 And what is the spur that keeps the pace,
  What is the galling goad?
 And now they beat at the prison door,
  "Ho, keeper, do not stay!
 We are friends of him whom you hold within,
  And we fain would take him away
 "From those who ride fast on our heels
  With mind to do him wrong;
 They have no care for his innocence,
  And the rope they bear is long."
 They have fooled the jailer with lying words,
  They have fooled the man with lies;
 The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,
  And the great door open flies.
 Now they have taken him from the jail,
  And hard and fast they ride,
 And the leader laughs low down in his throat,
  As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,
  And the doctor one of white,
 And the minister, with his oldest son,
  Was curiously bedight.
 Oh, foolish man, why weep you now?
  'Tis but a little space,
 And the time will come when these shall dread
  The mem'ry of your face.
 I feel the rope against my bark,
  And the weight of him in my grain,
 I feel in the throe of his final woe
  The touch of my own last pain.
 And never more shall leaves come forth
  On the bough that bears the ban;
 I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead,
  From the curse of a guiltless man.
 And ever the judge rides by, rides by,
  And goes to hunt the deer,
 And ever another rides his soul
  In the guise of a mortal fear.
 And ever the man he rides me hard,
  And never a night stays he;
 For I feel his curse as a haunted bough,
  On the trunk of a haunted tree.


Scheme XABABCDCXEFEXGXGHIJIXKXKXFXFXLXLEMXM XHXDNJOJXPBPXQOQGRXRXANA
Poetic Form Etheree  (22%)
Metre 11111111 1110111 0111110111 1010101 110110111 0111011 111001101 010101 11110111 011101 111011111 0110111 111101111 01111101 101111111 0010111 11111111 10011 011011101 110101 011110101 110111 1111111101 01111101 111111101 111111 111111100 0011111 1110101101 1110111 0110111 0011101 111101101 010111 0010111011 1111101 101110111 0010111 0010011101 110001 11011111 110101 001111111 01111 11010111 00111011 1100111101 0111111 01011111 1011101 1111111101 10110101 010011111 011101 010010111 00110101 010011111 0100111 1111110101 10110101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,136
Words 433
Sentences 18
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 36, 24
Lines Amount 60
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 791
Words per stanza (avg) 215
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 23, 2023

2:10 min read
122

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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