Analysis of Above the Battle's Front
Vachel Lindsay 1879 (Springfield) – 1931 (Springfield)
St. Francis, Buddha, Tolstoi, and St. John —
Friends, if you four, as pilgrims, hand in hand,
Returned, the hate of earth once more to dare,
And walked upon the water and the land,
If you, with words celestial, stopped these kings
For sober conclave, ere their battle great,
Would they for one deep instant then discern
Their crime, their heart-rot, and their fiend's estate?
If you should float above the battle's front,
Pillars of cloud, of fire that does not slay,
Bearing a fifth within your regal train,
The Son of David in his strange array—
If, in his majesty, he towered toward Heaven,
Would they have hearts to see or understand?
. . . Nay, for he hovers there to-night we know,
Thorn-crowned above the water and the land.
Scheme | XAXA XBXB XCXC XAXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 110101011 1111110101 0101111111 0101010001 1111010111 110111101 1111110101 1111101101 1111010101 10111101111 1001011101 0111001101 1011001100110 111111101 1111011111 1101010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 728 |
Words | 130 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 39 sec read
- 146 Views
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"Above the Battle's Front" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37258/above-the-battle%27s-front>.
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