Analysis of The Great Yellow River Inundation in China
William Topaz McGonagall 1825 – 1902 (Greyfriars Parish, Edinburgh)
'Twas in the year of 1887, and on the 28th of September,
Which many people of Honan, in China, will long remember;
Especially those that survived the mighty deluge,
That fled to the mountains, and tops of trees, for refuge.
The river burst its embankments suddenly at dead of night,
And the rushing torrent swept all before it left and right;
All over the province of Honan, which for its fertility,
Is commonly called by historians, the garden of China.
The river was at its fullest when the embankment gave way,
And when the people heard it, oh! horror and dismay;
'Twas then fathers and mothers leaped from their beds without delay,
And some saved themselves from being drowned, but thousands were swept away.
Oh! it was a horrible and most pitiful scene,
To hear fathers and mothers and their children loudly scream;
As the merciless water encircled they bodies around,
While the water spirits laughed to see them drowned.
Oh! heaven, it must have been an appalling sight,
To witness in the dead stillness of the night
Frantic fathers and mothers, struggling hard against the roaring flood,
To save themselves and little ones, their own. flesh and blood.
The watchmen tried to patch the breach, but it was all in vain,
Because the banks were sodden with the long prolonged rain;
And driven along by a high wind, which brought the last strain,
Which caused the water with resistless fury to spread o'er the plain.
And the torrent poured into the valley of the La Chia river,
Sweeping thousands of the people before it ere a helping hand could them deliver;
Oh! it was horrible to hear the crashing of houses fallen on every side,
As the flood of rushing waters spread far and wide.
The Chinese offer sacrifices to the water spirits twice a year,
And whether the water spirits or God felt angry I will not aver;
But perhaps God has considered such sacrifices a sin,
And has drowned so many thousands of them for not worshipping Him.
How wonderful are the works of God,
At times among His people abroad;
Therefore, let us be careful of what we do or say,
For fear God doth suddenly take our lives away.
The province of Honan is about half the size of Scotland,
Dotted over with about 3000 villages, most grand;
And inhabited by millions of people of every degree,
And these villages, and people were transformed into a raging sea.
The deluge swept on over the fertile and well-cultivated land,
And the rushing of the mighty torrent no power could withstand;
And the appalling torrent was about twenty feet deep,
And with resistless fury everything before it it did sweep.
Methinks I see the waste of surging waters, and hear its deafening roar,
And on its surface I see corpses of men and women by the score;
And the merciless torrent in the darkness of the night,
Sportively tossing them about, oh! what a horrible sight.
Besides there were buffaloes and oxen, timber, straw, and grain,
Also three thousand villages were buried beneath the waters of the plain;
And multitudes beneath their own roofs have found a watery grave,
While struggling hard, no doubt, poor souls their lives to save.
Therefore good people at home or abroad,
Be advised by me and trust more in God,
Than the people of Honan, the benighted Chinese,
For fear God punished you likewise for your iniquities.
Scheme | AABB CCDX EEEE XXFF CCGG HHHH AAII XAXX JKEE XLDD LLMM NNCC HHOO KJPP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (57%) |
Metre | 10011010111010 1101011001011010 010110101010 1110100111110 010110101001111 00101011011101 1100101101110100 1100110100010110 010111101001011 0101011110001 111001011110101 0110111011100101 1110100011001 11100100110101 101001001011001 10101011111 110111110101 11000110101 10100101001010101 1101010111101 01011101111101 0101010101011 01001101111011 110101110111001 00101010101011010 101010100111010111010 111100110101101011001 101110101101 00110100101010101 010010101111011110 10111010110001 0111101011111001 110010111 110111001 111110111111 1111100110101 010110101101110 101010110011 00100110110110001 01100010001010101 0101110010011001 0010101010110101 00010101011011 0111010011111 11101110100111001 01110111011010101 00100100010101 1101011101001 0110101010101 1011010001001010101 010011111101001 1100111111111 111011101 1011101101 1010110001001 1111011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 3,245 |
Words | 578 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 47 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 187 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 41 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:53 min read
- 76 Views
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"The Great Yellow River Inundation in China" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41912/the-great-yellow-river-inundation-in-china>.
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