Analysis of The White Ships and the Red

Joyce Kilmer 1886 (New Brunswick) – 1918 (Seringes-et-Nesles)



(For Alden March)

With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels
Are white as driven snow,
And with a pallid radiance
Their ghostly bulwarks glow.

Here is a Spanish galleon
That once with gold was gay,
Here is a Roman trireme
Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded,
And prows that once were bright
With rainbow stains wear only
Death's livid, dreadful white.

White as the ice that clove her
That unforgotten day,
Among her pallid sisters
The grim Titanic lay.
And through the leagues above her
She looked aghast, and said:
"What is this living ship that comes
Where every ship is dead?"

The ghostly vessels trembled
From ruined stern to prow;
What was this thing of terror
That broke their vigil now?
Down through the startled ocean
A mighty vessel came,
Not white, as all dead ships must be,
But red, like living flame!

The pale green waves about her
Were swiftly, strangely dyed,
By the great scarlet stream that flowed
From out her wounded side.
And all her decks were scarlet
And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships
And stained them through and through.

The grim Titanic greeted her
"And who art thou?" she said;
"Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet
Arrayed in living red?
We are the ships of sorrow
Who spend the weary night,
Until the dawn of Judgment Day,
Obscure and still and white."

"Nay," said the scarlet visitor,
"Though I sink through the sea,
A ruined thing that was a ship,
I sink not as did ye.
For ye met with your destiny
By storm or rock or fight,
So through the lagging centuries
Ye wear your robes of white.

"But never crashing iceberg
Nor honest shot of foe,
Nor hidden reef has sent me
The way that I must go.
My wound that stains the waters,
My blood that is like flame,
Bear witness to a loathly deed,
A deed without a name.

"I went not forth to battle,
I carried friendly men,
The children played about my decks,
The women sang -- and then --
And then -- the sun blushed scarlet
And Heaven hid its face,
The world that God created
Became a shameful place!

"My wrong cries out for vengeance,
The blow that sent me here
Was aimed in Hell.  My dying scream
Has reached Jehovah's ear.
Not all the seven oceans
Shall wash away that stain;
Upon a brow that wears a crown
I am the brand of Cain."

When God's great voice assembles
The fleet on Judgment Day,
The ghosts of ruined ships will rise
In sea and strait and bay.
Though they have lain for ages
Beneath the changeless flood,
They shall be white as silver,
But one -- shall be like blood.


Scheme X XABACDED FGHGIJKJ LGBGLMXM XNLNFHKH LOXOPQXQ LMXMDJGJ LKXKKJXJ XDHDBHXH XRXRPSIS ETHTXUXU CGXGXILI
Poetic Form
Metre 1101 1101010 1100111 110110 01011 1101010 111101 01010100 11011 11010100 111111 110101 110101 111110 011101 111110 110101 1101110 111 0101010 010101 0101010 110101 11110111 1100111 0101010 110111 1111110 111101 1101010 010101 11111111 111101 0111010 010101 10110111 110101 0101010 010101 11010111 011101 01010100 011111 111110101 010101 1101110 110101 01011101 010101 11010100 111101 01011101 111111 11111100 111111 11010100 111111 1101010 110111 1101111 011111 1111010 111111 1101011 010101 1111110 110101 01010111 010101 0101110 010111 0111010 010101 1111110 011111 11011101 110101 1101010 110111 01011101 110111 1111010 011101 01110111 010101 1111110 01011 1111110 111111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 2,535
Words 490
Sentences 25
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 1, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 89
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 170
Words per stanza (avg) 40
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 08, 2023

2:26 min read
56

Joyce Kilmer

Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled "Trees", which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. more…

All Joyce Kilmer poems | Joyce Kilmer Books

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