Analysis of An Arctic Quest
Helen Hunt Jackson 1830 (Amherst, Massachusetts) – 1885 (San Francisco)
O proudly name their names who bravely sail
To seek brave lost in Arctic snows and seas!
Bring money and bring ships, and on strong knees
Pray prayers so strong that not one word can fail
To pierce God's listening heart!
Rigid and pale,
The lost men's bodies, waiting, drift and freeze;
Yet shall their solemn dead lips tell to these
Who find them secrets mighty to prevail
On farther, darker, icier seas.
I go
Alone, unhelped, unprayed-for. Perishing
For years in realms of more than Arctic snow,
My heart has lingered.
Will the poor dead thing
Be sign to quide past bitter flood and floe,
To open sea, some strong heart triumphing?
Scheme | ABBACABBABDEDFEDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101111101 1111010101 1100110111 1111111111 1111001 1001 0111010101 1111011111 1111010101 1101011 11 01111100 1101111101 11110 10111 1111110101 11011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 641 |
Words | 115 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 17 |
Lines Amount | 17 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 500 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 113 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 18, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 79 Views
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"An Arctic Quest" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17051/an-arctic-quest>.
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