Analysis of Hold your mad hands

Robert Southey 1774 (Bristol) – 1843 (London)



Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
For ever must your Niger's tainted flood,
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! and learn at length to know,
And turn your vengeance on the common foe,
Yon treacherous vessel and her godless crew!
Let never traders with false pretext fair
Set on your shores again their wicked feet:
With interdict and indignation meet
Repel them, and with fire and sword pursue!
Avarice, the white cadaverous fiend, is there,
Who spreads his toils accursed wide and far,
And for his purveyor calls the demon War.


Scheme ABBACCDEFFDEGH
Poetic Form
Metre 1111110111 1011011111 110111101 11010011101 1111011111 0111010101 11001000101 110101111 1111011101 11000101 01101100101 100011111 11111101 01101010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 627
Words 111
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 494
Words per stanza (avg) 109
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
106

Robert Southey

Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843. more…

All Robert Southey poems | Robert Southey Books

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