Analysis of Bantry Bay
John Clare 1793 (Helpston) – 1864 (St Andrew's Hospital)
On the eighteenth of October we lay in Bantry Bay,
All ready to set sail, with a fresh and steady gale:
A fortnight and nine days we in the harbour lay,
And no breeze ever reached us or strained a single sail.
Three ships of war had we, and the great guns loaded all;
But our ships were dead and beaten that had never feared a foe.
The winds becalmed around us cared for no cannon ball;
They locked us in the harbour and would not let us go.
On the nineteenth of October, by eleven of the clock,
The sky turned black as midnight and a sudden storm came on--
Awful and sudden--and the cables felt the shock;
Our anchors they all broke away and every sheet was gone.
The guns fired off amid the strife, but little hope had we;
The billows broke above the ship and left us all below.
The crew with one consent cried 'Bear further out to sea,'
But the waves obeyed no sailor's call, and we knew not where to go.
She foundered on a rock, while we clambered up the shrouds,
And staggered like a mountain drunk, wedged in the waves almost.
The red hot boiling billows foamed in the stooping clouds,
And in that fatal tempest the whole ship's crew were lost.
Have pity for poor mariners, ye landsmen, in a storm.
O think what they endure at sea while safe at home you stay.
All ye that sleep on beds at night in houses dry and warm,
O think upon the whole ship's crew, all lost at Bantry Bay.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EXEXFDFD GXGXHAHA |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001101011011 1101111010101 01011100101 0111011110101 1111110011101 1101010101110101 0101011111101 1110010011111 101110101010101 0111110010111 100100010101 1010111010100111 011010101110111 01010101011101 0111011110111 1010111010111111 1101011110101 0101010110011 0111010100101 0011010011101 1101110011001 11110111111111 11111111010101 1101011111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,369 |
Words | 272 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 45 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 358 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 90 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:22 min read
- 35 Views
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"Bantry Bay" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22204/bantry-bay>.
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