Analysis of Three Portraits of Prince Charles
Andrew Lang 1844 (Selkirk, Scottish Borders) – 1912 (Banchory)
BEAUTIFUL face of a child,
Lighted with laughter and glee,
Mirthful, and tender, and wild,
My heart is heavy for thee!
Beautiful face of a youth,
As an eagle poised to fly forth
To the old land loyal of truth,
To the hills and the sounds of the North:
Fair face, daring and proud,
Lo! the shadow of doom, even now,
The fate of thy line, like a cloud,
Rests on the grace of thy brow!
Cruel and angry face,
Hateful and heavy with wine,
Where are the gladness, the grace,
The beauty, the mirth that were thine?
Ah, my Prince, it were well,—
Hadst thou to the gods been dear,—
To have fallen where Keppoch fell,
With the war-pipe loud in thine ear!
To have died with never a stain
On the fair White Rose of Renown,
To have fallen, fighting in vain,
For thy father, thy faith, and thy crown!
More than thy marble pile,
With its women weeping for thee,
Were to dream in thine ancient isle,
To the endless dirge of the sea!
But the Fates deemed otherwise;
Far thou sleepest from home,
From the tears of the Northern skies,
In the secular dust of Rome.
A city of death and the dead,
But thither a pilgrim came,
Wearing on weary head
The crowns of years and fame:
Little the Lucrine lake
Or Tivoli said to him,
Scarce did the memories wake
Of the far-off years and dim,
For he stood by Avernus’ shore.
But he dreamed of a Northern glen,
And he murmured, over and o’er,
“For Charlie and his men:”
And his feet, to death that went,
Crept forth to St. Peter’s shrine,
And the latest Minstrel bent
O’er the last of the Stuart line.
Scheme | ABAB CDCDEFEF GHGH IJIXKLKLMBMBNONOPQPQRSRSXTJTUHUH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001101 1011001 101001 1111011 1001101 11101111 10111011 101001101 111001 10111101 01111101 1101111 100101 1001011 110101 01001101 111101 1110111 1110111 10111011 11111001 10111101 11101001 111011011 111101 11101011 01101101 10101101 101110 11111 10110101 00100111 01011001 110101 101101 011101 10011 1100111 1101001 1011101 111111 11110101 01101001 110011 0111111 1111101 0010101 10110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,618 |
Words | 298 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 8, 4, 32 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 290 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 73 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 56 Views
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"Three Portraits of Prince Charles" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2841/three-portraits-of-prince-charles>.
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