Analysis of Departure (Southampton Docks: October, 1899)
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask again:
"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels
Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,
That are as puppets in a playing hand? -
When shall the saner softer polities
Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,
And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand
Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"
Scheme | ABBA ACCA DEAEED |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110101 0011010101 1101010111 0101001111 1111001001 1101111101 1101110101 111101101 111111111 1111000101 11010101 111110111 0100011111 111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 644 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 168 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 117 Views
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"Departure (Southampton Docks: October, 1899)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36354/departure-%28southampton-docks%3A-october%2C-1899%29>.
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