Analysis of To The Queen
O loyal to the royal in thyself,
And loyal to thy land, as this to thee--
Bear witness, that rememberable day,
When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince
Who scarce had plucked his flickering life again
From halfway down the shadow of the grave,
Past with thee through thy people and their love,
And London rolled one tide of joy through all
Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man
And welcome! witness, too, the silent cry,
The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime--
Thunderless lightnings striking under sea
From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm,
And that true North, whereof we lately heard
A strain to shame us 'keep you to yourselves;
So loyal is too costly! friends--your love
Is but a burthen: loose the bond, and go.'
Is this the tone of empire? here the faith
That made us rulers? this, indeed, her voice
And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont
Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven?
What shock has fooled her since, that she should speak
So feebly? wealthier--wealthier--hour by hour!
The voice of Britain, or a sinking land,
Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas?
THERE rang her voice, when the full city pealed
Thee and thy Prince! The loyal to their crown
Are loyal to their own far sons, who love
Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes
For ever-broadening England, and her throne
In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle,
That knows not her own greatness: if she knows
And dreads it we are fallen. --But thou, my Queen,
Not for itself, but through thy living love
For one to whom I made it o'er his grave
Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale,
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul,
Ideal manhood closed in real man,
Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost,
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him
Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one
Touched by the adulterous finger of a time
That hovered between war and wantonness,
And crownings and dethronements: take withal
Thy poet's blessing, and his trust that Heaven
Will blow the tempest in the distance back
From thine and ours: for some are sacred, who mark,
Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm,
Waverings of every vane with every wind,
And wordy trucklings to the transient hour,
And fierce or careless looseners of the faith,
And Softness breeding scorn of simple life,
Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold,
Or Labour, with a groan and not a voice,
Or Art with poisonous honey stolen from France,
And that which knows, but careful for itself,
And that which knows not, ruling that which knows
To its own harm: the goal of this great world
Lies beyond sight: yet--if our slowly-grown
And crowned Republic's crowning common-sense,
That saved her many times, not fail--their fears
Are morning shadows huger than the shapes
That cast them, not those gloomier which forego
The darkness of that battle in the West,
Where all of high and holy dies away.
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101001 0101111111 110111 1111010101 11111100101 111101101 1111110011 0101111111 0101001111 0101010101 01110010101 11010101 11011111 011111101 0111111101 1101110111 110110101 11011100101 1111010101 01010111 110011101010 1111011111 11010010010110 0111010101 1111110101 1101101101 1011010111 1101111111 101010010101 11010010001 01011001111 1110110111 01111101111 1101111101 11111111011 1001110101 11010011111 0111011 1011111101 1101111101 011101111 110111111 110010010101 11001101 010111 11010011110 1101000101 110101111011 1101010111 11100111001 0101101010 011101101 0101011101 1100011111 111010101 111100101011 0111110101 0111110111 1111011111 10111110101 0101010101 1101011111 11011101 11111100101 0101110001 1111010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,954 |
Words | 521 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 66 |
Lines Amount | 66 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 2,303 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 525 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:37 min read
- 90 Views
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"To The Queen" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1126/to-the-queen>.
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