Analysis of Sir William Stanley
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
The man was old, his hair was grey—
And I have heard the old man say,
'Keep thou from royal courts away;'
In proof thereof, he wont to tell
The Stanley’s fatal chronicle.
King Henry sat amid his court, and of the nobles there
Not one with William Stanley for favour could compare;
He was the royal chamberlain, and on his bended knee
Within King Henry’s silver cup the red wine poured he.
There came a knight in presence there, he named my master’s name,
As he stood betting golden coin upon the royal game.
And on Sir Robert Clifford’s word, they took his sword away,
And William Stanley to the Tower was prisoner sent that day.
God only knows the hearts of men, but ’twas a wondrous thing
My noble master should conspire against the crowned king;
For well I know on Bosworth Field it was his red right hand
That placed upon Earl Richmond’s brow King Richard’s royal band.
But ancient service is forgot; and he, the Wiseman, said,
Think thou no evil of the king upon thy lonely bed;
And therefore little will I name of what I then heard told,
That my good lord’s worst treasons were his broad lands and his gold.
I saw him on the scaffold stand, the axe was gleaming bright,
But I will say he faced its shine as best became a knight;
He prayed a prayer—he knelt him down—there smote a sullen sound,
I saw my master’s severed head upon the dark red ground.
No nobles bore the noble’s pall, there was no funeral bell,
But I stood weeping by the grave of him I loved so well.
I know not of the right or wrong, but this much let me say,
Would God my master had been kept from kings and courts away!
Scheme | AAABX CCDD EEAA FFGG HHII JJKK BBAA |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111111 01110111 11110101 0111111 0110100 11010111010101 111101011101 11010100011101 011110101111 11010101111101 11110101010101 0111011111101 0101010101100111 11010111110101 11010101001011 11111101111111 1101111110101 11010101010101 11110101011101 0110111111111 1111110111011 11110101011101 11111111110101 11011111110101 11110101010111 110101011111001 11110101111111 11110111111111 11110111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,611 |
Words | 305 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 43 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 177 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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"Sir William Stanley" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/52744/sir-william-stanley>.
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