Analysis of The Woodcutter's Hut
Archibald Lampman 1861 (Upper Canada) – 1899 (Ottawa, Canada)
Far up in the wild and wintery hills in the heart of the cliff-broken
woods,
Where the mounded drifts lie soft and deep in the noiseless solitudes,
The hut of the lonely woodcutter stands, a few rough beams that show
A blunted peak and a low black line, from the glittering waste of snow.
In the frost-still dawn from his roof goes up in the windless,
motionless air,
The thin, pink curl of leisurely smoke; through the forest white and
bare
The woodcutter follows his narrow trail, and the morning rings and
cracks
With the rhythmic jet of his sharp-blown breath and the echoing shout of
his axe.
Only the waft of the wind besides, or the stir of some hardy bird--
The call of the friendly chickadee, or the pat of the nuthatch--is
heard;
Or a rustle comes from a dusky clump, where the busy siskins feed,
And scatter the dimpled sheet of the snow with the shells of the
cedar-seed.
Day after day the woodcutter toils untiring with axe and wedge,
Till the jingling teams come up from the road that runs by the valley's
edge,
With plunging of horses, and hurling of snow, and many a shouted word,
And carry away the keen-scented fruit of his cutting, cord upon cord.
Not the sound of a living foot comes else, not a moving visitant there,
Save the delicate step of some halting doe, or the sniff of a prowling
bear.
And only the stars are above him at night, and the trees that creak and
groan,
And the frozen, hard-swept mountain-crests with their silent fronts of
stone,
As he watches the sinking glow of his fire and the wavering flames
upcaught,
Cleaning his rifle or mending his moccasins, sleepy and slow of
thought.
Or when the fierce snow comes, with the rising wind, from the grey
north-east,
He lies through the leaguering hours in his bunk like a winter-hidden
beast,
Or sits on the hard-packed earth, and smokes by his draught-blown
guttering fire,
Without thought or remembrance, hardly awake, and waits for the storm
to tire.
Scarcely he hears from the rock-rimmed heights to the wild ravines
below,
Near and far-off, the limitless wings of the tempest hurl and go
In roaring gusts that plunge through the cracking forest, and lull,
and lift,
All day without stint and all night long with the sweep of the hissing
drift.
But winter shall pass ere long with its hills of snow and its fettered
dreams,
And the forest shall glimmer with living gold, and chime with the
gushing of streams;
Millions of little points of plants shall prick through its matted
floor,
And the wind-flower lift and uncurl her silken buds by the woodman's
door;
The sparrow shall see and exult; but lo! as the spring draws gaily on,
The woodcutter's hut is empty and bare, and the master that made it is
gone.
He is gone where the gathering of valley men another labour yields,
To handle the plough, and the harrow, and scythe, in the heat of the
summer fields.
He is gone with his corded arms, and his ruddy face, and his moccasined
feet,
The animal man in his warmth and vigour, sound, and hard, and complete.
And all summer long, round the lonely hut, the black earth burgeons and
breeds,
Till the spaces are filled with the tall-plumed ferns and the triumphing
forest-weeds;
The thick wild raspberries hem its walls, and, stretching on either
hand,
The red-ribbed stems and the giant-leaves of the sovereign spikenard
stand.
So lonely and silent it is, so withered and warped with the sun and
snow,
You would think it the fruit of some dead man's toil a hundred years
ago;
And he who finds it suddenly there, as he wanders far and alone,
Is touched with a sweet and beautiful sense of something tender and
gone,
The sense of a struggling life in the waste, and the mark of a soul's
command,
The going and coming of vanished feet, the touch of a human hand.
Scheme | abbccbdedefgfhihjkjlmlhndodepgpqegrstatpuvuwccxyoyhzkze1 b1 2 i3 4 k4 e5 5 e6 o6 U7 e7 ec8 cpe3 b7 7 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (31%) |
Metre | 1100101100110110 1 101111010011 01101011011111 01010011110100111 0011111111001 1001 011111001101010 1 01101101001010 1 10101111110010011 11 10011010110111101 01101011011011 1 101011011101011 010010110110110 101 110101111101 101111101111010 1 110110010110100101 010010110111101011 1011010111101011 101001111011011010 1 01001101111001110 1 001011101111011 1 111001011110001001 1 10110110110010011 1 11011110101101 11 1110110011101010 1 1110111011111 10010 0111010100101101 110 10111011110101 01 1011010011010101 01011110101001 01 1101101111011010 1 1101111111110110 1 001011011010110 1011 1011011111111 1 001101010101101 1 01011001111011101 0111100100101111 1 11110100110101011 1100100100100110 101 1111110101101011 1 0100101101101001 011011010101110 1 10101110111001 101 01110111010110 1 01110010110101 1 11001011110011010 1 111101111110101 01 01111100111101001 1110101001110100 1 01101001001001101 01 01001011010110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,671 |
Words | 677 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 85 |
Lines Amount | 85 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 2,956 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 675 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 25, 2023
- 3:24 min read
- 139 Views
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"The Woodcutter's Hut" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3718/the-woodcutter%27s-hut>.
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