Analysis of Cain
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path,
And gild his branded brow, that no man spill
His forfeit life to balk thy holy will
That spares him for the ripening of wrath.
Already, lo! the red sign is descried,
To trembling jurors visibly revealed:
The prison doors obediently yield,
The baffled hangman flings the cord aside.
Powell, the brother's blood that marks your trail
Hark, how it cries against you from the ground,
Like the far baying of the tireless hound.
Faith! to your ear it is no nightingale.
What signifies the date upon a stone?
To-morrow you shall die if not to-day.
What matter when the Avenger choose to slay
Or soon or late the Devil gets his own.
Thenceforth through all eternity you'll hold
No one advantage of the later death.
Though you had granted Ralph another breath
Would _he_ to-day less silent lie and cold?
Earth cares not, curst assassin, when you die;
You never will be readier than now.
Wear, in God's name, that mark upon your brow,
And keep the life you purchased with a lie!
Scheme | ABBA CCCC DCCD ECXE CFFC CGGX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1111011101 0111011111 1101111101 1111010011 010101111 11001010001 0101010001 0101010101 1001011111 1111011101 10110101001 1111111100 110010101 1101111111 11010010111 1111010111 111010011 1101010101 1111010101 1111110101 1111010111 1101110011 1011110111 0101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 996 |
Words | 184 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 64 Views
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"Cain" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1734/cain>.
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