Analysis of Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. Interlude VI.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
All praised the Legend more or less;
Some liked the moral, some the verse;
Some thought it better, and some worse
Than other legends of the past;
Until, with ill-concealed distress
At all their cavilling, at last
The Theologian gravely said:
'The Spanish proverb, then, is right;
Consult your friends on what you do,
And one will say that it is white,
And others say that it is red.'
And 'Amen!' quoth the Spanish Jew.
'Six stories told! We must have seven,
A cluster like the Pleiades,
And lo! it happens, as with these,
That one is missing from our heaven.
Where is the Landlord? Bring him here;
Let the Lost Pleiad reappear.'
Thus the Sicilian cried, and went
Forthwith to seek his missing star,
But did not find him in the bar,
A place that landlords most frequent,
Nor yet beside the kitchen fire,
Nor up the stairs, nor in the hall;
It was in vain to ask or call,
There were no tidings of the Squire.
So he came back with downcast head,
Exclaiming: 'Well, our bashful host
Hath surely given up the ghost.
Another proverb says the dead
Can tell no tales; and that is true.
It follows, then, that one of you
Must tell a story in his stead.
You must,' he to the Student said,
'Who know so many of the best,
And tell them better than the rest.'
Straight by these flattering words beguiled,
The Student, happy as a child
When he is called a little man,
Assumed the double task imposed,
And without more ado unclosed
His smiling lips, and thus began.
Scheme | ABBCACDEFEDF GHHGXX XIIXXJJX DKKDFFDDLL MMNXCN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111 11010101 11110011 11010101 01110101 111111 00100101 01010111 01111111 01111111 01011111 00110101 110111110 0101010 01110111 1111011010 1101111 1011001 100100101 11111101 11111001 0111110 110101010 11011001 11011111 10110101 1111111 010110101 11010101 01010101 11110111 11011111 11010011 11110101 11110101 01110101 111100101 01010101 11110101 01010101 0011011 11010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,417 |
Words | 276 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 8, 10, 6 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 223 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 68 Views
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"Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. Interlude VI." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18780/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-%3A-part-2.-interlude-vi.>.
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