Analysis of Custer: Book Second
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Oh, for the power to call to aid, of mine
Own humble Muse, the famed and sacred nine.
Then might she fitly sing, and only then,
Of those intrepid and unflinching men
Who knew no homes save ever moving tents,
And who 'twixt fierce unfriendly elements
And wild barbarians warred. Yet unfraid,
Since love impels thy strains, sing, sing, my modest maid.
Relate how Custer in midwinter sought
Far Washita's cold shores; tell why he fought
With savage nomads fortressed in deep snows.
Woman, thou source of half the sad world's woes
And all its joys, what sanguinary strife
Has vexed the earth and made contention rife
Because of thee! For, hidden in man's heart,
Ay, in his very soul, of his true self a part,
The natural impulse and the wish belongs
To win thy favor and redress thy wrongs.
Alas! for woman, and for man, alas!
If that dread hour should ever come to pass,
When, through her new-born passion for control,
She drives that beauteous impulse from his soul.
What were her vaunted independence worth
If to obtain she sells her sweetest rights of birth?
God formed fair woman for her true estate-
Man's tender comrade, and his equal mate,
Not his competitor in toil and trade.
While coarser man, with greater strength was made
To fight her battles and her rights protect.
Ay! to protect the rights of earth's elect
(The virgin maiden and the spotless wife)
From immemorial time has man laid down his life.
And now brave Custer's valiant army pressed
Across the dangerous desert of the West,
To rescue fair white captives from the hands
Of brutal Cheyenne and Comanche bands,
On Washita's bleak banks. Nine hundred strong
It moved its slow determined way along,
Past frontier homes left dark and desolate
By the wild Indians' fierce and unrelenting hate;
Past forts where ranchmen, strong of heart and bold,
Wept now like orphaned children as they told,
With quivering muscles and with anguished breath,
Of captured wives, whose fate was worse than death;
Past naked bodies whose disfiguring wounds
Spoke of the hellish hate of human hounds;
Past bleaching skeleton and rifled grave,
On pressed th' avenging host, to rescue and to save.
Uncertain Nature, like a fickle friend,
(Worse than the foe on whom we may depend)
Turned on these dauntless souls a brow of wrath
And hurled her icy jav'lins in their path.
With treacherous quicksands, and with storms that blight,
Entrapped their footsteps and confused their sight.
'Yet on,' urged Custer, 'on at any cost,
No hour is there to waste, no moment to be lost.'
Determined, silent, on they rode, and on,
Like fabled Centaurs, men and steeds seemed one.
No bugle echoed and no voice spoke near,
Lest on some lurking Indian's list'ning ear
The sound might fall. Through swift descending snow
The stealthy guides crept, tracing out the foe;
No fire was lighted, and no halt was made
From haggard gray-lipped dawn till night lent friendly shade.
Then, by the shelt'ring river's bank at last,
The weary warriors paused for their repast.
A couch of ice and falling shows for spread
Made many a suffering soldier's chilling bed.
They slept to dream of glory and delight,
While the pale fingers of the pitying night
Wove ghostly winding sheets for that doomed score
Who, ere another eve, should sleep to wake no more.
But those who slept not, saw with startled eyes
Far off, athwart dim unprotecting skies,
Ascending slowly with majestic grace,
A lustrous rocket, rising out of space.
'Behold the signal of the foe,' cried one,
The field is lost before the strife's begun.
Yet no! for see! yon rays spread near and far;
It is the day's first smile, the radiant morning star.
The long hours counting till the daylight broke,
In whispered words the restless warriors spoke.
They talked of battles, but they thought of home
(For hearts are faithful though the feet may roam).
Brave Hamilton, all eager for the strife,
Mused o'er that two-fold mystery-death and life;
'And when I die,' quoth he, 'mine be the part
To fall upon the field, a bullet in my heart.'
At break of dawn the scouts crept in to say
The foe was camped a rifle shot away.
The baying of a dog, an infant's cry
Pierced through the air; sleep fled from every eye.
To horse! to arms! the dead demand the dead!
Let the grand charge upon the lodge be led!
Let the Mosaic law, life for a
Scheme | AABBXXCC CCDDEECC FFGGHHII CCCCCCEE CCJJKKCC CCLLXXMM CCNNCCCC XOXXPPCC CCCCCCQQ RRSSOOTT UUVVEECC WWXXCCX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111111 1101010101 111110101 1101000101 1111110101 0111010100 010100111 11111111101 0111001101 11111111 11011011 1011110111 0111111 1101010101 0111110011 101101111101 01001000101 1111000111 0111001101 11110110111 1101110101 111110111 100100101 110111010111 1111010101 110101101 1101000101 1101110111 1101000101 1101011101 0101000101 101001111111 0111010101 01010010101 1101110101 1100100101 11111101 1111010101 1011110100 101100100101 111111101 1111010111 11001001101 1101111111 11010101001 1101011101 1101000101 11110101110011 0101010101 1101111101 111110111 010101011 1100101111 011100111 1111011101 1101111110111 0101011101 110110111 1101001111 11110100111 0111110101 0101110101 11011001111 110111111101 110110111 0101001111 0111010111 110010010101 1111110001 10110101001 1101011111 110101111111 1111111101 1101111 0101010101 0101010111 0101010111 0111010101 1111111101 1101110100101 0110101011 01010101001 1111011111 1111010111 1100110101 110111100101 0111111101 110101010011 1111011011 0111010101 0101011101 11011111001 1111010101 1011010111 100101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,226 |
Words | 772 |
Sentences | 40 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7 |
Lines Amount | 95 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 282 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 63 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:55 min read
- 39 Views
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"Custer: Book Second" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10580/custer%3A-book-second>.
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