Analysis of The Sword
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
'Twas the battle-field, and the cold pale moon
Look'd down on the dead and dying,
And the wind pass'd o'er, with a dirge and a wail,
Where the young and the brave were lying.
With his father's sword in his red right hand,
And the hostile dead around him,
Lay a youthful chief; but his bed was the ground.
And the grave's icy sleep had bound him.
A reckless rover, 'mid death and doom,
Pass'd a soldier, his plunder seeking :
Careless he stept where friend and foe
Lay alike in their life-blood reeking.
Drawn by the shine of the warrior's sword,
The soldier paused beside it ;
He wrench'd the hand with a giant's strength,
But the grasp of the dead defied it.
He loosed his hold, and his English heart
Took part with the dead before him,
And he honour'd the brave who died sword in hand,
As with soften'd brow he leant o'er him.
‘A soldier's death thou hast boldly died,
A soldiers grave won by it ;
Before I would take that sword from thine hand.
My own llfe's-blood should dye It.
Thou shalt not be left for the carrion crow,
Or the wolf to batten o'er thee ;
Or the coward insult the gallant dead,
Who in life had trembled before thee.'
Then dug he a grave in the crimson earth
Where his warrior foe was sleeping ;
And he laid him there in honour and rest,
With his sword in his own brave keeping.
Scheme | XAXA BCXC XADA XEXE XCBC XEBE DFXF XAXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1010100111 11101010 001110101001 101001010 1110101111 00101011 10101111101 001101111 010101101 101011010 10111101 101011110 11011011 0101011 110110101 101101011 111101101 11101011 0110111101 11101110101 010111101 0101111 0111111111 1111111 11111101001 101110101 1010010101 101110011 1110100101 111001110 011110101 111011110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,473 |
Words | 318 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 124 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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"The Sword" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/44729/the-sword>.
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