Analysis of Bigotry's Victim
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)
I.
Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,
The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?
When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind
Repose trust in his footsteps of air?
No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair,
The monster transfixes his prey,
On the sand flows his life-blood away;
Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.
II.
Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches,
Dares fearless to perish defending her brood,
Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches
Thirsting--ay, thirsting for blood;
And demands, like mankind, his brother for food;
Yet more lenient, more gentle than they;
For hunger, not glory, the prey
Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead.
Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer’s head.
III.
Though weak as the lama that bounds on the mountains,
And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air,
Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains,
Though a fiercer than tiger is there.
Though, more dreadful than death, it scatters despair,
Though its shadow eclipses the day,
And the darkness of deepest dismay
Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around,
And lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground.
IV.
They came to the fountain to draw from its stream
Waves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see;
They bathed for awhile in its silvery beam,
Then perished, and perished like me.
For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee;
The most tenderly loved of my soul
Are slaves to his hated control.
He pursues me, he blasts me! 'Tis in vain that I fly:--
What remains, but to curse him,--to curse him and die?
Scheme | ABCBCCDDAE AXFXXFDDGG AHCHCCDDII XJEJEEKKAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (28%) |
Metre | 1 101011101101 01011111101 1010010101101 01101111 101011001101 010111 101111101 11001111101 10100100 1 1011010110010 11011001001 1010111010010 11111 00111111011 1110011011 11011001 11001111001 101011101001 1 111010111010 00111110111 111111010110 101011011 1110111101 11101001 001011001 1010011101001 010101011101 1 11101011111 111101011011 11101011001 11001011 101101101011 011001111 11111001 1011111101111 101111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,625 |
Words | 290 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 10, 10, 10 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 324 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 72 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 46 Views
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