Analysis of A Memorial Tribute
Oliver Wendell Holmes 1841 ( Boston, Massachusetts, United States) – 1935 ( Washington, D.C., )
Read At The Meeting Held At Music Hall, February 8, 1876, In Memory Of Dr. Samuel G. Howe
Leader of armies, Israel's God,
Thy soldier's fight is won!
Master, whose lowly path he trod,
Thy servant's work is done!
No voice is heard from Sinai's steep
Our wandering feet to guide;
From Horeb's rock no waters leap;
No Jordan's waves divide;
No prophet cleaves our western sky
On wheels of whirling fire;
No shepherds hear the song on high
Of heaven's angelic choir.
Yet here as to the patriarch's tent
God's angel comes a guest;
He comes on heaven's high errand sent,
In earth's poor raiment drest.
We see no halo round his brow
Till love its own recalls,
And, like a leaf that quits the bough,
The mortal vesture falls.
In autumn's chill declining day,
Ere winter's killing frost,
The message came; so passed away
The friend our earth has lost.
Still, Father, in thy love we trust;
Forgive us if we mourn
The saddening hour that laid in dust
His robe of flesh outworn.
How long the wreck-strewn journey seems
To reach the far-off past
That woke his youth from peaceful dreams
With Freedom's trumpet-blast.
Along her classic hillsides rung
The Paynim's battle-cry,
And like a red-cross knight he sprung
For her to live or die.
No trustier service claimed the wreath
For Sparta's bravest son;
No truer soldier sleeps beneath
The mound of Marathon;
Yet not for him the warrior's grave
In front of angry foes;
To lift, to shield, to help, to save,
The holier task he chose.
He touched the eyelids of the blind,
And lo! the veil withdrawn,
As o'er the midnight of the mind
He led the light of dawn.
He asked not whence the fountains roll
No traveller's foot has found,
But mapped the desert of the soul
Untracked by sight or sound.
What prayers have reached the sapphire throne,
By silent fingers spelt,
For him who first through depths unknown
His doubtful pathway felt,
Who sought the slumbering sense that lay
Close shut with bolt and bar,
And showed awakening thought the ray
Of reason's morning star.
Where'er he moved, his shadowy form
The sightless orbs would seek,
And smiles of welcome light and warm
The lips that could not speak.
No labored line, no sculptor's art,
Such hallowed memory needs;
His tablet is the human heart,
His record loving deeds.
The rest that earth denied is thine, -
Ah, is it rest? we ask,
Or, traced by knowledge more divine,
Some larger, nobler task?
Had but those boundless fields of blue
One darkened sphere like this;
But what has heaven for thee to do
In realms of perfect bliss?
No cloud to lift, no mind to clear,
No rugged path to smooth,
No struggling soul to help and cheer,
No mortal grief to soothe!
Enough; is there a world of love,
No more we ask to know;
The hand will guide thy ways above
That shaped thy task below.
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111011000100111011 10110101 110111 10110111 11111 1111111 10100111 1111101 110101 110110101 1111010 11010111 1101010 11110101 110101 111101101 01111 11110111 11111 01011101 01011 01010101 110101 01011101 0110111 11001111 011111 0100101101 11111 11011101 110111 11111101 110101 0101011 01101 01011111 101111 1110101 11101 11010101 01110 1111011 011101 11111111 0100111 1101101 010101 11001101 110111 11110101 11111 11010101 11111 111101001 110101 11111101 11011 110100111 111101 010100101 11101 101111001 01111 01110101 011111 1101111 1101001 11010101 101101 01110111 111111 11110101 110101 11110111 110111 111101111 011011 11111111 110111 110011101 110111 01110111 111111 01111101 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,766 |
Words | 529 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 22 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 85 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 98 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:45 min read
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"A Memorial Tribute" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56314/a-memorial-tribute>.
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