Analysis of The Song Of The Derelict
John McCrae 1872 (Guelph) – 1918 (Boulogne-sur-Mer)
Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes
(I scorn your beguiling, O sea!)
Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes.
(A treacherous lover, the sea!)
Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night
A hull in the gloom -- a quick hail -- and a light
And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite
From the doom that ye meted to me.
I was sister to `Terrible', seventy-four,
(Yo ho! for the swing of the sea!)
And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more
(Alas! for the might of the sea!)
Ye taunt me and sing me her fate for a sign!
What harm can ye wreak more on me or on mine?
Ho braggart! I care not for boasting of thine --
A fig for the wrath of the sea!
Some night to the lee of the land I shall steal,
(Heigh-ho to be home from the sea!)
No pilot but Death at the rudderless wheel,
(None knoweth the harbor as he!)
To lie where the slow tide creeps hither and fro
And the shifting sand laps me around, for I know
That my gallant old crew are in Port long ago --
For ever at peace with the sea!
Scheme | ABABCCCB DBDBEEEB FBFBGGGB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111111011 11101011 1101111111 01001001 111111101001 01001011001 0111011001011 101111011 1110111001 11101101 011001001011 01101101 11101101101 11111111111 1111111011 01101101 11101101111 11111101 11011101001 1101011 11101111001 001011101111 111011101101 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,013 |
Words | 222 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 252 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 72 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 75 Views
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