Analysis of Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries
Alfred Edward Housman 1859 – 1936
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
| Scheme | ABAB CDCD |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
| Metre | 1001110110 010110101 10110010 01110011 110101010 11010101 110101010 01011111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 306 |
| Words | 52 |
| Sentences | 3 |
| Stanzas | 2 |
| Stanza Lengths | 4, 4 |
| Lines Amount | 8 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
| Words per line (avg) | 6 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 122 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 16 sec read
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"Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/875/epitaph-on-an-army-of-mercenaries>.
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