Analysis of Battle
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 1878 (Hexham) – 1962
He went, and he was gay to go:
And I smiled on him as he went.
My boy! 'Twas well he couldn't know
My darkest dread, or what it meant -
Just what it meant to smile and smile
And let my son go cheerily -
My son ... and wondering all the while
What stranger would come back to me.
All day beneath the hurtling shells
Before my burning eyes
Hover the dainty demoiselles -
The peacock dragon-flies.
Unceasingly they dart and glance
Above the stagnant stream -
And I am fighting here in France
As in a senseless dream.
A dream of shattering black shells
That hurtle overhead,
And dainty dancing demoiselles
Above the dreamless dead.
Out of the sparkling sea
I drew my tingling body clear, and lay
On a low ledge the livelong summer day,
Basking, and watching lazily
White sails in Falmouth Bay.
My body seemed to burn
Salt in the sun that drenched it through and through
Till every particle glowed clean and new
And slowly seemed to turn
To lucent amber in a world of blue....
I felt a sudden wrench -
A trickle of warm blood -
And found that I was sprawling in the mud
Among the dead men in the trench.
Scheme | ABAB CCCD EFEF GHGH EIEI DJJDJ KLLKL MNNM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011111 01111111 11111101 11011111 11111101 011111 110100101 11011111 11010101 011101 100101 01101 11101 010101 01110101 100101 01110011 110101 010101 01011 110101 11110010101 101101101 10010100 110101 110111 1001111101 11001001101 010111 1101000111 110101 010111 0111110001 01011001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,140 |
Words | 233 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 107 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:10 min read
- 12 Views
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"Battle" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56959/battle>.
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