Analysis of Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Interlude VI.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Thus closed the tale of guilt and gloom,
That cast upon each listener's face
Its shadow, and for some brief space
Unbroken silence filled the room.
The Jew was thoughtful and distressed;
Upon his memory thronged and pressed
The persecution of his race,
Their wrongs and sufferings and disgrace;
His head was sunk upon his breast,
And from his eyes alternate came
Flashes of wrath and tears of shame.
The Student first the silence broke,
As one who long has lain in wait,
With purpose to retaliate,
And thus he dealt the avenging stroke.
'In such a company as this,
A tale so tragic seems amiss,
That by its terrible control
O'ermasters and drags down the soul
Into a fathomless abyss.
The Italian Tales that you disdain,
Some merry Night of Straparole,
Or Machiavelli's Belphagor,
Would cheer us and delight us more,
Give greater pleasure and less pain
Than your grim tragedies of Spain!'
And here the Poet raised his hand,
With such entreaty and command,
It stopped discussion at its birth,
And said: 'The story I shall tell
Has meaning in it, if not mirth;
Listen, and hear what once befell
The merry birds of Killingworth!'
Scheme | ABBACCBBCDD EFFEGGHHGIHJJII KKLMLML |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011101 1101111 1101111 01010101 01110001 011100101 0010111 110100001 11110111 01111001 10110111 01010101 11111101 1101010 011100101 01010011 01110101 11110001 101101 010101 001011101 110111 100101 11100111 11010011 11110011 01010111 11010001 11010111 01010111 11001111 10011101 010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,104 |
Words | 201 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 15, 7 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 298 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 66 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 104 Views
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"Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. Interlude VI." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18746/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-%3A-part-1.-interlude-vi.>.
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