Analysis of Battle Of Brunanburgh
Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew'd the lindenwood,
Hack'd the battleshield,
Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands.
Theirs was a greatness
Got from their Grandsires--
Theirs that so often in
Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes.
Bow'd the spoiler,
Bent the Scotsman,
Fell the shipcrews
Doom'd to the death.
All the field with blood of the fighters
Flow'd, from when first the great
Sun-star of morningtide,
Lamp of the Lord God
Lord everlasting,
Glode over earth till the glorious creature
Sank to his setting.
There lay many a man
Marr'd by the javelin,
Men of the Northland
Shot over shield.
There was the Scotsman
Weary of war.
We the West-Saxons,
Long as the daylight
Lasted, in companies
Troubled the track of the host that we hated;
Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone
Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us.
Mighty the Mercian,
Hard was his hand-play,
Sparing not any of
Those that with Anlaf,
Warriors over the
Weltering waters
Borne in the bark's-bosom,
Drew to this island:
Doom'd to the death.
Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke,
Seven strong earls of the army of Anlaf
Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers,
Shipmen and Scotsmen.
Then the Norse leader,
Dire was his need of it,
Few were his following,
Fled to his warship;
Fleeted his vessel to sea with the king in it,
Saving his life on the fallow flood.
Also the crafty one,
Constantinus,
Crept to his north again,
Hoar-headed hero!
Slender warrant had
He to be proud of
The welcome of war-knives--
He that was reft of his
Folk and his friends that had
Fallen in conflict,
Leaving his son too
Lost in the carnage,
Mangled to morsels,
A youngster in war!
Slender reason had
He to be glad of
The clash of the war-glaive--
Traitor and trickster
And spurner of treaties--
He nor had Anlaf
With armies so broken
A reason for bragging
That they had the better
In perils of battle
On places of slaughter--
The struggle of standards,
The rush of the javelins,
The crash of the charges,
The wielding of weapons--
The play that they play'd with
The children of Edward.
Then with their nail'd prows
Parted the Norsemen, a
Blood-redden'd relic of
Javelins over
The jarring breaker, the deep-sea billow,
Shaping their way toward Dyflen again,
Shamed in their souls.
Also the brethren,
King and Atheling,
Each in his glory,
Went to his own in his own West-Saxonland,
Glad of the war.
Many a carcase they left to be carrion,
Many a livid one, many a sallow-skin--
Left for the white-tail'd eagle to tear it, and
Left for the horny-nibb'd raven to rend it, and
Gave to the garbaging war-hawk to gorge it, and
That gray beast, the wolf of the weald.
Never had huger
Slaughter of heroes
Slain by the sword-edge--
Such as old writers
Have writ of in histories--
Hapt in this isle, since
Up from the East hither
Saxon and Angle from
Over the broad billow
Broke into Britain with
Haughty war-workers who
Harried the Welshman, when
Earls that were lured by the
Hunger of glory gat
Hold of the land.
Scheme | abcdeaxfgexccx hbijx ekbLmxcxaeaxknxko dxjpxh ixqqrmscL xqmi etaxtp kbuv wqxxwxxxxo wqqejqkaefexbxdyx xrqevux kaxco kicccc exgmjxesvyxurxn |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (27%) |
Metre | 11 1011 1010 10110 11110 101 10011 10010 11011 111 1011 101 101 11101101 11010 1111 111100 111100 1111011011 1010 1010 101 1101 101111010 111101 1111 11011 1010 11011010010 11110 111001 110100 1101 1101 11010 1011 10110 1101 100100 10011011110 1011101101 10111010011 1001 11111 101101 1111 100100 110 100110 11110 1101 1111011011 1011101011 11011110 101 10110 111111 101100 1111 11101110101 10111011 100101 1 111101 11010 10101 11111 010111 111111 101111 10010 10111 10010 10110 01001 10101 11111 011011 10010 01110 1111 110110 010110 111010 010110 110110 010110 01101 011010 010110 011111 010110 11111 100100 11101 110 0101001110 101101101 1011 10010 101 10110 111101111 1101 10011111100 10010110011 11011101110 110101101110 1101111110 11101101 1011 10110 11011 11110 1110100 10111 110110 100101 100110 101101 101101 10011 110110 101101 1101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 3,999 |
Words | 563 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 5, 17, 6, 9, 4, 6, 4, 10, 17, 7, 5, 6, 15 |
Lines Amount | 125 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 180 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:53 min read
- 125 Views
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"Battle Of Brunanburgh" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/959/battle-of-brunanburgh>.
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