Analysis of The Dread Voyage

William Wilfred Campbell 1860 (Newmarket) – 1918 (Ottawa)



1     Trim the sails the weird stars under—
2     Past the iron hail and thunder,
3     Past the mystery and the wonder,
4         Sails our fated bark;
5     Past the myriad voices hailing,
6     Past the moaning and the wailing,
7     The far voices failing, failing,
8         Drive we to the dark.

9     Past the headlands grim and sombre,
10   Past the shores of mist and slumber,
11   Leagues on leagues no man may number,
12       Soundings none can mark;
13   While the olden voices calling,
14   One by one behind are falling;
15   Into silence dread, appalling,
16       Drift we to the dark.

17   Far behind, the sad eyes yearning,
18   Hands that wring for our returning,
19   Lamps of love yet vainly burning:
20       Past the headlands stark!
21   Through the wintry snows and sleeting,
22   On our pallid faces beating,
23   Through the phantom twilight fleeting,
24       Drive we to the dark.

25   Without knowledge, without warning,
26   Drive we to no lands of morning;
27   Far ahead no signals horning
28       Hail our nightward bark.
29   Hopeless, helpless, weird, outdriven,
30   Fateless, friendless, dread, unshriven,
31   For some race-doom unforgiven,
32       Drive we to the dark.

33   Not one craven or unseemly;
34   In the flare-light gleaming dimly,
35   Each ghost-face is watching grimly:
36       Past the headlands stark!
37   Hearts wherein no hope may waken,
38   Like the clouds of night wind-shaken,
39   Chartless, anchorless, forsaken,
40       Drift we to the dark.


Scheme AAABCCCB AAABCCCB CCCBBCCB CCCBDDDB EEEBDDDB
Poetic Form Etheree  (35%)
Tetractys  (23%)
Metre 10101110 10101010 101000010 110101 101001010 10100010 01101010 11101 101101 10111010 11111110 10111 10101010 11101110 01101010 11101 10101110 111110010 11111010 1011 1010101 110101010 1010110 11101 01100110 11111110 10111010 11011 101011 1111 1111010 11101 11101010 00111010 11111010 1011 10111110 10111110 11010 11101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,494
Words 249
Sentences 9
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 40
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 215
Words per stanza (avg) 77
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:14 min read
67

William Wilfred Campbell

William Wilfred Campbell (1 June ca. 1860 – 1 January 1918) was a Canadian poet. He is often classed as one of the country's Confederation Poets, a group that included fellow Canadians Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott; he was a colleague of Lampman and Scott. By the end of the 19th century, he was considered the "unofficial poet laureate of Canada." Although not as well known as the other Confederation poets today, Campbell was a "versatile, interesting writer" who was influenced by Robert Burns, the English Romantics, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Thomas Carlyle, and Alfred Tennyson. Inspired by these writers, Campbell expressed his own religious idealism in traditional forms and genres.  more…

All William Wilfred Campbell poems | William Wilfred Campbell Books

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