Analysis of I Was A Stranger, And Ye Took Me In
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
'Neath skies that winter never knew
The air was full of light and balm,
And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew
Through orange bloom and groves of palm.
A stranger from the frozen North,
Who sought the fount of health in vain,
Sank homeless on the alien earth,
And breathed the languid air with pain.
God's angel came! The tender shade
Of pity made her blue eye dim;
Against her woman's breast she laid
The drooping, fainting head of him.
She bore him to a pleasant room,
Flower-sweet and cool with salt sea air,
And watched beside his bed, for whom
His far-off sisters might not care.
She fanned his feverish brow and smoothed
Its lines of pain with tenderest touch.
With holy hymn and prayer she soothed
The trembling soul that feared so much.
Through her the peace that passeth sight
Came to him, as he lapsed away
As one whose troubled dreams of night
Slide slowly into tranquil day.
The sweetness of the Land of Flowers
Upon his lonely grave she laid
The jasmine dropped its golden showers,
The orange lent its bloom and shade.
And something whispered in her thought,
More sweet than mortal voices be
'The service thou for him hast wrought
O daughter! hath been done for me.'
Scheme | ABAB XCXC DEDE FGFG HIHI JKJK LDLD MNMN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11110101 01111101 01010111 11010111 01010101 11011101 110101001 01010111 11010101 11010111 01010111 01010111 11110101 101011111 01011111 11110111 111100101 1111111 11010111 010011111 1001111 11111101 11110111 11001101 010101110 01110111 010111010 01011101 01010001 11110101 01011111 11011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,154 |
Words | 217 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 117 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 101 Views
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"I Was A Stranger, And Ye Took Me In" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22930/i-was-a-stranger%2C-and-ye-took-me-in>.
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