Analysis of The Greek Boy
William Cullen Bryant 1794 (Cummington) – 1878 (New York City)
Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,
Glorious in mien and mind;
Their bones are mingled with the mould,
Their dust is on the wind;
The forms they hewed from living stone
Survive the waste of years, alone,
And, scattered with their ashes, show
What greatness perished long ago.
Yet fresh the myrtles there--the springs
Gush brightly as of yore;
Flowers blossom from the dust of kings,
As many an age before.
There nature moulds as nobly now,
As e'er of old, the human brow;
And copies still the martial form
That braved Plataea's battle storm.
Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek
Their heaven in Hellas' skies:
Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,
Her sunshine lit thine eyes;
Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains
Heard by old poets, and thy veins
Swell with the blood of demigods,
That slumber in thy country's sods.
Now is thy nation free--though late--
Thy elder brethren broke--
Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight,
The intolerable yoke.
And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see
Her youth renewed in such as thee:
A shoot of that old vine that made
The nations silent in its shade.
Scheme | ABABCCDD EFEFGGHH IJIJKKEE LMLMNNOO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110100111 1000101 11110101 111101 01111101 01011101 01011101 11010101 11010101 110111 101010111 1101101 11011101 110110101 01010101 111101 11110111 110011 0111111 01111 1111011 11110011 110111 11001101 11110111 110101 11110111 0010001 01010111 01010111 01111111 01010011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,075 |
Words | 196 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 216 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 99 Views
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