Analysis of The Hive At Gettysburg
IN the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame,
So terrible alive,
Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became
The wandering wild bees' hive;
And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore
Those jaws of death apart,
In after time drew forth their honeyed store
To strengthen his strong heart.
Dead seemed the legend: but it only slept
To wake beneath our sky;
Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept
Back to its lair to die,
Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds,
A stained and shattered drum
Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds,
The wild bees go and come.
Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel,
They wander wide and far,
Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell,
Through vales once choked with war.
The low reveille of their battle-drum
Disturbs no morning prayer;
With deeper peace in summer noons their hum
Fills all the drowsy air.
And Samson's riddle is our own to-day,
Of sweetness from the strong,
Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away
From the rent jaws of wrong.
From Treason's death we draw a purer life,
As, from the beast he slew,
A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife
The old-time athlete drew!
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEFGHGHIJKCHLHLMNMNOPOP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0011010101 110001 110110101 0100111 0111010101 111101 010111111 110111 1101011101 1101101 110111101 111111 1001110101 010101 11011111001 011101 0101010100 110101 011111101 111111 01111101 011101 1101010111 110101 0110110111 110101 1101010101 101111 111110101 110111 0101011101 01111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,113 |
Words | 202 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 32 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 896 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 200 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:02 min read
- 107 Views
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"The Hive At Gettysburg" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23116/the-hive-at-gettysburg>.
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