Analysis of The Murderess
Alice Cary 1820 (Mount Healthy) – 1871
Along the still cold plain o’erhead,
In pale embattled crowds.
The stars their tents of darkness spread,
And camped among the clouds;
Cinctured with shadows, like a wraith,
Night moaned along the lea;
Like the blue hungry eye of Death,
Shone the perfidious sea;
The moon was wearing to the wane,
The winds were wild and high,
And a red meteor's flaming mane
Streamed from the northern sky.
Across the black and barren moor,
Her dainty bosom bare;
And white lips sobbing evermore,
Rides Eleanor the fair.
So hath the pining sea-maid plained
For love of mortal lips,
Riding the billows, silver-reined.
Hard by disastrous ships.
Why covers she her mournful eyes?
Why do her pulses cease,
As if she saw before her rise
The ghost of murdered Peace?
From out her path the ground-bird drifts
With wildly startled calls,
The moonlight snake its white fold lifts
From where her shadow falls.
Ah me! I that delicate hand of hers,
Now trembling like a reed.
Like to the ancient mariner’s
Hath done a hellish deed;
And full of mercy were the frown
Which might the power impart
To press the eternal darkness down
Against her bleeding heart.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEF XGXGAHAH IJIJKLKL MAMANANA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101111 010101 01111101 010101 111101 110101 10110111 1011 01110101 010101 0011101 110101 01010101 010101 0111010 110001 11010111 111101 10010101 110101 11010101 110101 11110101 011101 11010111 110101 0111111 11011 1111100110 1100101 11010100 110101 01110001 1101001 110010101 010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,130 |
Words | 197 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 224 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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