Analysis of On The Western Front
Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)
I
I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;
For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,
Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;
Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,
Rank after rank, it seemed that peace was there;
Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,
The peace of tides that underlie our strife,
The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,
The peace that is our everlasting life.
The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.
The silence of the dead was all I heard.
We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.
To all your praises we are deaf and blind.
We may not ever know if you betray
Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.
Only our silence, in the night, shall grow
More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;
And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know
How many scornful legions pass you by.
For we have heard you say (when we were living)
That some small dream of good would “cost too much.”
But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving,
And seen you move the mountains with one touch.
What can be done, we know. But, have no fear!
If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.
Scheme | ABCBC DEDE FGFG HH IJIJ KAKA LMLM XX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 1101010101 1101011111 01110100101 01111111 1011111111 111101011 1111010111 1101111111 101011111 0111101101 01110101011 0111100101 0111010101 0101011111 1111110111 1111011101 1111011101 10111110111 10101000111 1101011001 01111011111 1101010111 11111111010 1111111111 11011111110 0111010111 1111111111 1111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,287 |
Words | 250 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 4, 2 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 123 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:15 min read
- 186 Views
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