Analysis of The Pines
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines;
The gray moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines,
And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where never a sunbeam shines.
On the flanks of the storm-gored ridges are our black battalions massed;
We surge in a host to the sullen coast, and we sing in the ocean blast;
From empire of sea to empire of snow we grip our empire fast.
To the niggard lands were we driven, 'twixt desert and floes are we penned;
To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend;
Ours till the world be riven in the crash of the utter end;
Ours from the bleak beginning, through the aeons of death-like sleep;
Ours from the shock when the naked rock was hurled from the hissing deep;
Ours through the twilight ages of weary glacier creep.
Wind of the East, Wind of the West, wandering to and fro,
Chant your songs in our topmost boughs, that the sons of men may know
The peerless pine was the first to come, and the pine will be last to go!
We pillar the halls of perfumed gloom; we plume where the eagles soar;
The North-wind swoops from the brooding Pole, and our ancients crash and roar;
But where one falls from the crumbling walls shoots up a hardy score.
We spring from the gloom of the canyon's womb; in the valley's lap we lie;
From the white foam-fringe, where the breakers cringe to the peaks that tusk the sky,
We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that gleams like a golden eye.
Gain to the verge of the hog-back ridge where the vision ranges free:
Pines and pines and the shadow of pines as far as the eye can see;
A steadfast legion of stalwart knights in dominant empery.
Sun, moon and stars give answer; shall we not staunchly stand,
Even as now, forever, wards of the wilder strand,
Sentinels of the stillness, lords of the last, lone land?
Scheme | AAA BBB CCC DDD EEE FFF GGG HHE III |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110011100101001 0111111001011101 010111011110011 10110111011010101 110011010101100101 11001111001111101001 10101011011001111 11101101011001 1010111000110101 101010101011111 10101101011110101 1010110110101 11011101100101 111010111011111 01011011100111111 1100110111110101 01111010101010101 1111101001110101 11101101010010111 10111101011011101 11011001111110101 1101101111010101 101001111110111 0110110101001 1101110111101 1011010110101 1001010110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 1,812 |
Words | 345 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 27 |
Letters per line (avg) | 53 |
Words per line (avg) | 13 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 159 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 1:44 min read
- 377 Views
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