Analysis of Lost on the Lady Elgin
Henry Clay Work 1832 (Middletown, Connecticut) – 1884 (Hartford, Connecticut)
Up from the poor man's cottage--
Forth from the mansion door;
Sweeping across the waters,
And echoing 'long the shore;
Caught by the morning breezes--
Borne on the evening gale;
Cometh a voice of mourning,
A sad and solemn wail.
Lost on the Lady Elgin!
Sleeping to wake no more!
Number'd in that three hundred,
Who fail'd to reach the shore!
Oh! 'tis the cry of children,
Weeping for parents gone;
Children who slept at evening,
But orphans woke at dawn.
Sisters for brothers weeping,
Husbands for missing wives--
Such are the ties dis-sever'd
With those three hundred live.
Staunch was the noble steamer--
Precious the freight she bore;
Gaily she loosed her cables,
A few short hours before.
Grandly she swept out harbor,
Joyfully ran her bell;
Little thought we, 'ere morning,
'Twould toll so sad a knell.
Scheme | XAXAXBCB XAXA XDCDCXXX EAXAEFCF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101110 110101 1001010 0100101 1101010 110101 1001110 010101 1101010 101111 1001110 111101 1101110 101101 1011110 110111 1011010 101101 1101110 111101 1101010 100111 1011010 0111001 1011110 100101 1011110 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 788 |
Words | 141 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 157 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 35 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 43 sec read
- 77 Views
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