Analysis of Drowned at Sea
Henry Kendall 1839 (Australia) – 1882 (Sydney)
Gloomy cliffs, so worn and wasted with the washing of the waves,
Are ye not like giant tombstones round those lonely ocean graves?
Are ye not the sad memorials, telling of a mighty grief —
Dark with records ground and lettered into caverned rock and reef?
Oh! ye show them, and I know them, and my thoughts in mourning go
Down amongst your sunless chasms, deep into the surf below!
Oh! ye bear them, and declare them, and o’er every cleft and scar,
I have wept for dear dead brothers perished in the lost Dunbar!
Ye smitten — ye battered,
And splintered and shattered
Cliffs of the Sea!
Restless waves, so dim with dreams of sudden storms and gusty surge,
Roaring like a gathered whirlwind reeling round a mountain verge,
Were ye not like loosened maniacs, in the night when Beauty pale
Called upon her God, beseeching through the uproar of the gale?
Were ye not like maddened demons while young children faint with fear
Cried and cried and cried for succour, and no helping hand was near?
Oh, the sorrow of the morrow! — lamentations near and far! —
Oh, the sobs for dear dead sisters perished in the lost Dunbar! —
Ye ruthless, unsated,
And hateful, and hated
Waves of the Sea!
Ay, we stooped and moaned in darkness —
eyes might strain and hearts might plead,
For their darlings crying wildly, they would never rise nor heed!
Ay, we yearned into their faces looking for the life in vain,
Wailing like to children blinded with a mist of sudden pain!
Dear hands clenched, and dear eyes rigid in a stern and stony stare,
Dear lips white from past affliction, dead to all our mad despair,
Ah, the groaning and the moaning — ah, the thoughts which rise in tears
When we turn to all those loved ones, looking backward five long years!
The fathers and mothers,
The sisters and brothers
Drowned at Sea!
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFGGHHIIDDEXF XJJKKLLXXMMF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110101010101 11111011110101 1110101001010101 11011010011101 111101110110101 1011111010101 1111001101100101 111111101000110 110110 010010 1101 101111111010101 10101011010101 011110100011101 10101010101101 01111101110111 10101110110111 101010101101 101111101000110 1101 010010 1101 11101010 1110111 111010101110111 111011101010101 101110101011101 111011100010101 1111101011110101 101000101011101 111111111010111 010010 010010 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,787 |
Words | 328 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 22, 12 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 706 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 163 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:38 min read
- 59 Views
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"Drowned at Sea" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17476/drowned-at-sea>.
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