Analysis of Dawnwards?
Sydney Jephcott 1864 (Tallangatta - Corryong area, Victoria) – 1951 ( Albury, New South Wales)
To the Author of the "Songs of the Army of the Night."
We - who, encircled in sleepless sadness
With ears laid close to the Austral earth,
Have heard far cries of wrong-wrought madness,
Of hopeless anguish and murd'rous mirth
Beneath all noise of maudlin gladness
Awail, environ the world's wide girth -
Almost arise with Hope's keen urging
When out the vasty and night-bound North
Red rays ascend, and Songs resurging
Through all the darkness and chill, come forth!
The comet climbs until it scorches
The sacred dais that skies the great,
Until it gleams on palace porches,
Where blissful aeons-to-be hold state -
Fades, and we know it one of the torches
Madmen a moment elevate!
And, closer clutching the earth, our sorrow
Doth then with desperate murmur cry,
"We ne'er shall see or morn or morrow!
For never star doth scale the sky,
"All men made wise through midnight sable
To lead where, safe after all annoy,
Sleep soft in earth's Augean stable
The virgin "Justice," the infant "Joy!" -
Grant this, O Father, being able,
Or else in merciful might destroy
"This orb whose past and present, awful
Alike, attest it a torture wheel,
Where, bound by holy men and lawful,
Man's body's broken with bars of steel!"
But when we pause, despairing wholly,
As a storm that strengthens out on the sea,
The far-flown SONGS come sounding slowly!
As sea-birds kindle that sweep alee
New hopes, old yearnings winging slowly
From breast to bosom for shelter flee!
And scarce we know, as there they hover
And our blood beats 'neath their beating wings,
If 'tis an old dream earthed over
Or new bird-ballad that stirs and sings!
But truth's Tyrtaeus is now our neighbour,
And strives to waken the slumbering South
With peal and throb of trump and tabour
And sobbing songs of his mournful mouth
To see where Life's all-giver, Labour,
Lies fettered, famished and dumb with drouth.
Sydney Jephcott,
Brisbane Boomerang, 25th January 1888.
Scheme | A BCBCBC DEDE BFXFXF GHGH IJIJIJ IKIK LLLILL MNMN GOGOXC AL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101011010101 1101001010 111110101 111111110 11010011 01111101 110111 10111110 11010111 110101010 110100111 01010111 01011101 011111010 11011111 1011111010 1001010 01010011010 11110101 111111110 11011101 11111110 111110101 1101110 010100101 111101010 110100101 111101010 010110101 111101010 110101111 111101010 1011101101 011111010 11110111 111101010 111101101 011111110 0101111101 11111110 111101101 11111101 0111001001 11011101 010111101 11111101 110100111 101 11011100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,902 |
Words | 345 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 2 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 137 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:45 min read
- 2 Views
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"Dawnwards?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56697/dawnwards%3F>.
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