Analysis of The Ballad of the 'Britain's Pride'
William Watson 1858 (Burley in Wharfedale) – 1935 (Rottingdean)
It was a skipper of Lowestoft
That trawled the northern sea,
In a smack of thrice ten tons and seven,
And the
Britain's Pride
was she.
And the waves were high to windward,
And the waves were high to lee,
And he said as he lost his trawl-net,
'What is to be, will be.'
His craft she reeled and staggered,
But he headed her for the hithe,
In a storm that threatened to mow her down
As grass is mown by the scythe;
When suddenly through the cloud-rift
The moon came sailing soft,
And he saw one mast of a sunken ship
Like a dead arm held aloft.
And a voice came faint from the rigging-
'Help! help!' it whispered and sighed-
And a single form to the sole mast clung,
In the roaring darkness wide.
Oh the crew were but four hands all told,
On board of the
Britain's Pride
,
And ever 'Hold on till daybreak!'
Across the night they cried.
Slowly melted the darkness,
Slowly rose the sun,
And only the lad in the rigging
Was left, out of thirty-one,
To tell the tale of his captain,
The English sailor true,
That did his duty and met his death
As English sailors do.
Peace to the gallant spirit,
The greatly proved and tried,
And to all who have fed the hungry sea
That is still unsatisfied;
And honour and glory for ever,
While rolls the unresting tide,
To the skipper of little Lowestoft,
And the crew of the
Britain's Pride
.
Scheme | abcdAbabab adxxaaxa eaxaadA xa xceccxxa aabaxaadA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011 110101 0011111010 00 101 11 00101110 0010111 011111111 111111 1111010 11100101 0011101101 1111101 11001011 011101 0111110101 1011101 001111010 1111001 0010110111 0010101 101011111 1110 101 1 0101111 010111 1010010 10101 010010010 1111101 11011110 010101 111100111 110101 1101010 010101 0111110101 111010 01010110 11011 10101101 00110 101 1 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,287 |
Words | 257 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 8, 10, 8, 10 |
Lines Amount | 46 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 204 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 119 Views
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