Analysis of The Fugitive. (Tartar Song, From The Prose Version Of Chodzko)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)



I.
'He is gone to the desert land
I can see the shining mane
Of his horse on the distant plain,
As he rides with his Kossak band!

'Come back, rebellious one!
Let thy proud heart relent;
Come back to my tall, white tent,
Come back, my only son!

'Thy hand in freedom shall
Cast thy hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.

'I will give thee leave to stray
And pasture thy hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.

'I will give thee my coat of mail,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid;
Will not all this prevail?'

'This hand no longer shall
Cast my hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.

'I will no longer stray
And pasture my hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.

'Though thou give me thy coat of mall,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid,
All this cannot prevail.

'What right hast thou, O Khan,
To me, who am mine own,
Who am slave to God alone,
And not to any man?

'God will appoint the day
When I again shall be
By the blue, shallow sea,
Where the steel-bright sturgeons play.

'God, who doth care for me,
In the barren wilderness,
On unknown hills, no less
Will my companion be.

'When I wander lonely and lost
In the wind; when I watch at night
Like a hungry wolf, and am white
And covered with hoar-frost;

'Yea, wheresoever I be,
In the yellow desert sands,
In mountains or unknown lands,
Allah will care for me!'

Then Sobra, the old, old man,--
Three hundred and sixty years
Had he lived in this land of tears,
Bowed down and said, 'O Khan!

'If you bid me, I will speak.
There's no sap in dry grass,
No marrow in dry bones! Alas,
The mind of old men is weak!

'I am old, I am very old:
I have seen the primeval man,
I have seen the great Gengis Khan,
Arrayed in his robes of gold.

'What I say to you is the truth;
And I say to you, O Khan,
Pursue not the star-white man,
Pursue not the beautiful youth.

'Him the Almighty made,
And brought him forth of the light,
At the verge and end of the night,
When men on the mountain prayed.

'He was born at the break of day,
When abroad the angels walk;
He hath listened to their talk,
And he knoweth what they say.

'Gifted with Allah's grace,
Like the moon of Ramazan
When it shines in the skies, O Khan,
Is the light of his beautiful face.

'When first on earth he trod,
The first words that he said
Were these, as he stood and prayed,
There is no God but God!

'And he shall be king of men,
For Allah hath heard his prayer,
And the Archangel in the air,
Gabriel, hath said, Amen!'


Scheme xabba cddc efFE ghHA iJJi efFE ghHA xJJi kllm gnng nxxn oppo nqqn mxxk rssr tmkt ukmu jppj gvvg wbkw xxjx yzzy
Poetic Form
Metre 1 11110101 1110101 11110101 1111111 110101 111101 1111111 111101 110101 1111101 10110101 10111 1111111 0101101 0011001 10111 11111111 110101 11011 111101 111101 1111101 10110101 10111 111101 0101101 0011001 10111 11111111 110101 11011 111001 111111 111111 1111101 011101 110101 110111 101101 1011101 111111 0010100 101111 110101 11101001 00111111 10101011 010111 1111 0010101 0101011 101111 110111 1100101 11101111 110111 1111111 111011 11001101 0111111 11111101 11100101 1110111 0101111 11111101 0111111 0110111 01101001 100101 0111101 10101101 1110101 11110111 1010101 1110111 011111 10111 10111 11100111 101111001 111111 011111 0111101 111111 0111111 1101111 0010001 1001101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 2,629
Words 520
Sentences 28
Stanzas 22
Stanza Lengths 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 89
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 90
Words per stanza (avg) 23
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:35 min read
81

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. more…

All Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poems | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Books

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    "The Fugitive. (Tartar Song, From The Prose Version Of Chodzko)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18857/the-fugitive.-%28tartar-song%2C-from-the-prose-version-of-chodzko%29>.

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