Analysis of A Good Time Going!

Oliver Wendell Holmes 1841 ( Boston, Massachusetts, United States) – 1935 ( Washington, D.C., )



Brave singer of the coming time,
Sweet minstrel of the joyous present,
Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme,
The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant,
Good by! Good by! - Our hearts and hands,
Our lips in honest Saxon phrases,
Cry, God be with him, till he stands
His feet among the English daisies!

'T is here we part; - for other eyes
The busy deck, the fluttering streamer,
The dripping arms that plunge and rise,
The waves in foam, the ship in tremor,
The kerchiefs waving from the pier,
The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him,
The deep blue desert, lone and drear,
With heaven above and home before him!

His home! - the Western giant smiles,
And twirls the spotty globe to find it;
This little speck the British Isles?
'T is but a freckle, - never mind it!
He laughs, and all his prairies roll,
Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles,
And ridges stretched from pole to pole
Heave till they crack their iron knuckles!

But Memory blushes at the sneer,
And Honor turns with frown defiant,
And Freedom, leaning on her spear,
Laughs louder than the laughing giant
"An islet is a world," she said,
"When glory with its dust has blended,
And Britain keeps her noble dead
Till earth and seas and skies are rended!"

Beneath each swinging forest-bough
Some arm as stout in death reposes, -
From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow
Her valor's life-blood runs in roses;
Nay, let our brothers of the West
Write smiling in their florid pages,
One half her soil has walked the rest
In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!

Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp,
From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather,
The British oak with rooted grasp
Her slender handful holds together; -
With cliffs of white and bowers of green,
And Ocean narrowing to caress her,
And hills and threaded streams between, -
Our little mother isle, God bless her!

In earth's broad temple where we stand,
Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us,
We hold the missal in our hand,
Bright with the lines our Mother taught us.
Where'er its blazoned page betrays
The glistening links of gilded fetters,
Behold, the half-turned leaf displays
Her rubric stained in crimson letters!

Enough! To speed a parting friend
'T is vain alike to speak and listen; -
Yet stay, - these feeble accents blend
With rays of light from eyes that glisten.
Good by! once more, - and kindly tell
In words of peace the young world's story, -
And say, besides, we love too well
Our mothers' soil, our fathers' glory.


Scheme ABABCDCX EFEFGHFH IJIJKLKL GBGBMXMB NCNOPDPO QFQFRFRF STSTUVUV WXWXYZYZ
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101 110101010 11010111 01011110 111110101 1010101010 11111111 110101010 111111101 0101010010 01011101 010101010 01010101 0101010101 01110101 1100101011 11010101 010101111 11010101 1110101011 11011101 11001001010 01011111 111111010 110010101 010111010 01010101 110101010 11010111 110111110 01010101 11010111 01110101 1111011 111111011 01111010 111010101 110011010 11011101 010101010 1001011 111111010 01011101 01011010 111101011 0101001010 01010101 1010101110 01110111 110101111 110100101 1101101011 1011101 0100111010 01011101 010101010 01110101 1110111010 11110101 111111110 11110101 011101110 01011111 10101101010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,403
Words 441
Sentences 17
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 64
Letters per line (avg) 30
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 238
Words per stanza (avg) 54
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:13 min read
13

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932, and as Acting Chief Justice of the United States in January–February 1930. more…

All Oliver Wendell Holmes poems | Oliver Wendell Holmes Books

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