Analysis of Coronation Ode
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 1840 (Petworth House) – 1922 (United Kingdom)
O Thou enfolded in grief,
Man, with thy mantle of scorn!
Arise and warn!
Unloved prophet of ill
Who sittest clothed in thy grief,
In thy pride of unbelief,
In thy silence of love forsworn!
Speak thy word to the world;
Let it be as a sword to thy will;
Let it be as a spear that is hurled,
A banner of wrath unfurled,
A garment rent and torn.
Speak. They shall listen to thee,
A single voice at their feast.
To the last and least,
They shall hear what they loathe to hear.
In the day of their Jubilee,
Of their coronation feast,
With the wine at their insolent lips,
Though they lend no ear
And their shoutings ring
From the decks of a thousand ships
Acclaiming their new--crowned king
With a coronation cheer,
They shall hear.
Speak, in their jubilant hour,
In the midst of their might and mirth.
Be thy theme the Earth,
The ancient tale of the lands of fame,
Empires of earlier birth,
Which held the world in their lust of power
As their own for dower
And abused their trust.
Make thy theme of the wrath that came,
The smoke that rose, the devouring flame,
The day of glory, the night of shame
And the end of dust.
O thou enrobed in thy tears!
Thou hast heard the children sing,
The children that pass in the street,
The innocent ones with their chauntings proud,
The rhyme of their marching feet.
How their voices sting!
What is the word they say
In their play,
The hymn their young lips fashion?
They have marched through the crowded ways
With flags and glory and shoutings loud
While the sun has looked down ablaze,
Amazed at their joyous passion.
Each one carries a sword,
A wooden sword in his hand,
With ribbon and belt and cord,
And a gun on his shoulder glorious,
Proud each one as a lord.
``Soldiers,'' they shout. ``We are soldiers come
From a battle--field. For, hark, the drum!
From a field of fight victorious.''
``Soldiers! Soldiers! Soldiers!'' Weary am I
Of that word forlorn,
Of the king's command,
Of the children's insolent cry,
A nation's cry whom the nations scorn
For its childish pride.
Better were these unborn!
England! Where is she? Where?
Land of the fortunate free
Which hath ceased to be?
What hath she done with her fame?
The nations that envied her
Turned to her in their care,
Sought her light upon land and sea,
Called as once on her ancient name,
The name of her liberty.
But her ears were shut to their prayer;
Her place was a sepulchre,
She had ceased in her strength to be,
She was no more free.
She fell as a star from its place,
As a bird from its path in the sky,
As a spring run dry,
A fruit in its rottenness,
As a drunken woman prone on her face
While the world went by,
And she knew not her own disgrace.
O thou, who hast seen her fall,
Who hast witnessed her agony,
Who hast looked on the face of the dead!
Lift up thy voice in the night and cry
``The harvest is harvested.
As these shall have made their bed,
So let them lie!''
Scheme | ABBCAABDCDDB EFFGEFHGIHIXG JKKLKJXMLLLM XINONIPPQRORQ STSUSVVUWBTWBXB XEELJXELEXGEE YWWHYWYXEZWXZW |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101 1111011 0101 011011 111011 01111 0110111 111101 111101111 111101111 0101101 010101 1111011 0101111 10101 11111111 0011110 110101 101111001 11111 0111 10110101 0101111 100101 111 10110010 00111101 11101 010110111 10011001 1101011110 11111 00111 11110111 0111001001 011100111 00111 111011 1110101 01011001 010011111 0111101 11101 110111 011 0111110 11110101 11010011 10111101 01111010 111001 0101011 1100101 0011110100 111101 101111101 101011101 101110100 1010101011 11101 10101 10101001 010110101 11101 100111 101111 1101001 11111 1111101 0101100 110011 10101101 11110101 0110100 10101111 01101 11100111 11111 11101111 101111001 10111 01011 1010101101 10111 01110101 1111101 11100100 111101101 111100101 0101100 1111111 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,791 |
Words | 551 |
Sentences | 38 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 13, 12, 13, 15, 13, 14 |
Lines Amount | 92 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 318 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 78 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:45 min read
- 74 Views
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"Coronation Ode" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38659/coronation-ode>.
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