Analysis of "The Rock" In El Ghor
Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps,
Her stones of emptiness remain;
Around her sculptured mystery sweeps
The lonely waste of Edom's plain.
From the doomed dwellers in the cleft
The bow of vengeance turns not back;
Of all her myriads none are left
Along the Wady Mousa's track.
Clear in the hot Arabian day
Her arches spring, her statues climb;
Unchanged, the graven wonders pay
No tribute to the spoiler, Time!
Unchanged the awful lithograph
Of power and glory undertrod;
Of nations scattered like the chaff
Blown from the threshing-floor of God.
Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn
From Petra's gates with deeper awe,
To mark afar the burial urn
Of Aaron on the cliffs of Hor;
And where upon its ancient guard
Thy Rock, El Ghor, is standing yet,
Looks from its turrets desertward,
And keeps the watch that God has set.
The same as when in thunders loud
It heard the voice of God to man,
As when it saw in fire and cloud
The angels walk in Israel's van,
Or when from Ezion-Geber's way
It saw the long procession file,
And heard the Hebrew timbrels play
The music of the lordly Nile;
Or saw the tabernacle pause,
Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's wells,
While Moses graved the sacred laws,
And Aaron swung his golden bells.
Rock of the desert, prophet-sung!
How grew its shadowing pile at length,
A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue,
Of God's eternal love and strength.
On lip of bard and scroll of seer,
From age to age went down the name,
Until the Shiloh's promised year,
And Christ, the Rock of Ages, came!
The path of life we walk to-day
Is strange as that the Hebrews trod;
We need the shadowing rock, as they,
We need, like them, the guides of God.
God send His angels, Cloud and Fire,
To lead us o'er the desert sand!
God give our hearts their long desire,
His shadow in a weary land
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GCGH IXIJ XKCK LMLM ENEN OPOP QRQR JSJS EHEH JTJT |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (92%) |
Metre | 11000111 01110001 010101001 0101111 10110001 01110111 1101111 010111 100101001 0101011 01010101 11010101 0101010 1100101 11010101 1101111 11010101 1111101 110101001 11010111 01011101 11111101 111101 01011111 01110101 11011111 111101001 01010101 111111 11010101 0101011 0101011 1101001 111111 11010101 01011101 11010101 111100111 01000101 11010101 11110111 11111101 0101101 01011101 01111111 1111011 110100111 11110111 111101010 111100101 1110111010 1100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,771 |
Words | 337 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 52 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 107 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:43 min read
- 24 Views
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""The Rock" In El Ghor" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55916/%22the-rock%22-in-el-ghor>.
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