Analysis of Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 3. Interlude VI.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
'Now that is after my own heart,'
The Poet cried; 'one understands
Your swarthy hero Scanderbeg,
Gauntlet on hand and boot on leg,
And skilled in every warlike art,
Riding through his Albanian lands,
And following the auspicious star
That shone for him o'er Ak-Hissar.'
The Theologian added here
His word of praise not less sincere,
Although he ended with a jibe;
'The hero of romance and song
Was born,' he said, 'to right the wrong;
And I approve; but all the same
That bit of treason with the Scribe
Adds nothing to your hero's fame.'
The Student praised the good old times,
And liked the canter of the rhymes,
That had a hoofbeat in their sound;
But longed some further word to hear
Of the old chronicler Ben Meir,
And where his volume might he found.
The tall Musician walked the room
With folded arms and gleaming eyes,
As if he saw the Vikings rise,
Gigantic shadows in the gloom;
And much he talked of their emprise
And meteors seen in Northern skies,
And Heimdal's horn, and day of doom.
But the Sicilian laughed again;
'This is the time to laugh,' he said,
For the whole story he well knew
Was an invention of the Jew,
Spun from the cobwebs in his brain,
And of the same bright scarlet thread
As was the Tale of Kambalu.
Only the Landlord spake no word;
'T was doubtful whether he had heard
The tale at all, so full of care
Was he of his impending fate,
That, like the sword of Damocles,
Above his head hung blank and bare,
Suspended by a single hair,
So that he could not sit at ease,
But sighed and looked disconsolate,
And shifted restless in his chair,
Revolving how he might evade
The blow of the descending blade.
The Student came to his relief
By saying in his easy way
To the Musician: 'Calm your grief,
My fair Apollo of the North,
Balder the Beautiful and so forth;
Although your magic lyre or lute
With broken strings is lying mute,
Still you can tell some doleful tale
Of shipwreck in a midnight gale,
Or something of the kind to suit
The mood that we are in to-night
For what is marvellous and strange;
So give your nimble fancy range,
And we will follow in its flight.'
But the Musician shook his head;
'No tale I tell to-night,' he said,
'While my poor instrument lies there,
Even as a child with vacant stare
Lies in its little coffin dead.'
Yet, being urged, he said at last:
'There comes to me out of the Past
A voice, whose tones are sweet and wild,
Singing a song almost divine,
And with a tear in every line;
An ancient ballad, that my nurse
Sang to me when I was a child,
In accents tender as the verse;
And sometimes wept, and sometimes smiled
While singing it, to see arise
The look of wonder in my eyes,
And feel my heart with terror beat.
This simple ballad I retain
Clearly imprinted on my brain,
And as a tale will now repeat.'
Scheme | ABCCABDD EFGCCHGH IIJEFJ KLLKLLKXMNNOMP QQRXSRRSARTT UXUVVWWPPWXYYX MMRRM ZZ1 2 2 3 1 3 1 LL4 OO4 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110111 0101101 110101 10110111 01010011 101101001 010000101 11111011 00100101 11111101 1110101 01010101 11111101 01011101 11110101 11011101 01010111 01010101 1101011 11110111 10110011 01110111 01010101 11010101 11110101 0101001 01111101 010010101 0110111 100100101 11011111 10110111 11010101 1101011 01011101 110111 1001111 111010111 01111111 11110101 1101110 01111101 01010101 11111111 11011 01010011 01011101 01100101 01011101 11001101 10010111 11010101 100100011 1110111 11011101 11111101 1100011 11010111 01111011 111101 11110101 01110011 10010111 11111111 11110011 101011101 10110101 11011111 11111101 01111101 1001101 010101001 11010111 11111101 01010101 00110011 11011101 01110011 01111101 11010101 10010111 01011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,692 |
Words | 531 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 6, 14, 12, 14, 5, 15 |
Lines Amount | 82 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 269 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 65 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:37 min read
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"Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 3. Interlude VI." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18797/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-%3A-part-3.-interlude-vi.>.
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