Analysis of Strathcona's Horse
William Henry Drummond 1854 – 1907
O I was thine, and thou wert mine, and
ours the boundless plain,
Where the winds of the North, my gallant
steed, ruffled thy tawny mane,
But the summons hath come with roll of drum,
and bugles ringing shrill,
Startling the prairie antelope, the grizzly of the
hill.
'Tis the voice of Empire calling, and the child-
ren gather fast
From every land where the cross bar floats out
from the quivering mast;
So into the saddle I leap, my own, with bridle
swinging free,
And thy hoofbeats shall answer the trumpets
blowing across the sea.
Then proudly toss thy head aloft, nor think of
the foe to-morrow,
For he who dares to stay our course drinks
deep of the Cup of Sorrow.
Thy form hath pressed the meadow's breast,
where the sullen grey wolf hides,
The great red river of the North hath cooled
thy burning sides;
Together we've slept while the tempest swept
the Rockies' glittering chain;
And many a day the bronze centaur hath gal-
loped behind in vain.
But the sweet wild grass of mountain pass, and
the battlefields far away,
And the trail that ends where Empire trends,
is the trail we ride to-day.
But proudly toss thy head aloft, nor think of
the foe to-morrow,
For he who bars Strathcona's Horse, drinks
deep of the Cup of Sorrow.
Scheme | abcbdefeghihjklkmNoNpqrqsbtbauvumNoN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101110 100101 101101110 1101101 1010111111 010101 100101001010 1 101110010001 1101 11001101111 101001 1010101111110 101 011110010 100101 11011101111 01110 1111111011 1101110 1111011 1010111 0111010111 1101 0101110101 0101001 0100101111 10101 1011111010 010101 0011111001 1011111 11011101111 01110 1111111 1101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,211 |
Words | 226 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 36 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 969 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 224 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 46 Views
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