Analysis of The Sacrifices
Twin boys I bore, my joy, my care,
My hope, my life they were to me;
Their father, dashing, debonair,
Fell fighting at Gallipoli.
His daring gallantry, no doubt,
They 'herited in equal share:
So when the Second War broke out,
With eagerness they chose the air.
Said Dick: "The sea's too bally slow;
A flying ship's the one for me."
Said Peter: "Land! Foot-slogging - no!
The jolly sky's my cup of tea."
Well, Dick bailed out in Channel flight,
His foam-flailed body never found;
While Peter, with his plane alight,
Dashed down to death on Kentish ground.
Gay lads they were, and tall and fair,
And had they chosen land or sea,
Shirking the hazards of the air,
They might still have been left to me.
But nothing could I say or do
To move their scorn of sea and land;
Like eagles to the sun they flew -
Why? Only they could understand.
Hw day and night I prayed for them!
But knew that it was ll in vain;
They measured with heroic men,
Yet . . . I will never pray again.
Though time may grieve my hair to grey,
My lips will never kiss the rod. . . .
Only in dying I may say
In pity - "I forgive you, God."
Scheme | ABACDADA CBXBEFEF ABABXGCG XXHHIJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 11111011 1101001 11011 11010011 110101 11010111 11001101 11011101 01010111 11011101 01011111 11110101 11110101 11011101 1111111 11100101 01110111 10010101 11111111 11011111 11111101 11010111 1101101 11011111 11111101 11010101 11110101 11111111 11110101 10010111 01010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,080 |
Words | 216 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 206 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:04 min read
- 57 Views
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"The Sacrifices" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32635/the-sacrifices>.
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