Analysis of God's-Acre
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.
Into its furrows shall we all be cast,
In the sure faith, that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume
With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.
With thy rude ploughahare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,
This is the place where human harvests grow!
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EXEX FGFG HXHX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (60%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111010111 01001110111 11110111 0101100101 110111101 1011100111 0111110011 1111011111 011111111 0011111101 101101011 111010101 1101100101 0011011101 0111010101 11110110111 111111101 0101010111 11010101101 1101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 904 |
Words | 165 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 141 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 121 Views
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