Analysis of The Final Reckoning
’Twas a wild and stormy sunset, changing tints of lurid red
Flooded mountain top and valley and the low clouds overhead;
And the rays streamed through the windows of a building stately, high,
Whose wealthy, high-born master had lain him down to die.
Many friends were thronging round him, breathing aching, heavy sighs—
Men with pale and awe-struck faces, women, too, with weeping eyes,
Watching breathless, silent, grieving him whose sands were nearly run,
When, with sudden start, he muttered: “God! how much I’ve left undone!”
Then out spoke an aged listener, with broad brow and locks of snow,
“Patriot, faithful to thy country and her welfare, say not so,
For the long years thou hast served her thou hast only honor won.”
But, from side to side still tossing, still he muttered: “Much undone!”
Then the wife, with moan of anguish, like complaint of stricken dove,
Murmured: “Husband, truer, fonder, never blessed a woman’s love,
And a just and tender father both to daughter and to son”—
But more feebly moaned he ever: “Oh! there’s much, there’s much undone!”
Quickly, then, a proud, stern soldier questioned: “Say, will not thy name
Long descend in future story, linked with honor and with fame,
For thine arm was prompt in battle and thy laurels nobly won;
Patriot, citizen and soldier, what, then, is there left undone?”
Then the dying man upraised him; at his accents loud and clear
Into silence men lapsed quickly—women checked each sob and tear;
And he said: “To fame, home, country, all my heart, my thoughts I’ve given,
But, Oh dreamers, can you tell me what I’ve done for God—for Heaven?
“It was not for Him I battled with the sword or with the pen,
Not for His praise that I thirsted, but that of my fellow-men;
And amid the light now flooding this my life’s last setting sun,
I can see, misguided worldling! that there’s much I’ve left undone.”
Thicker, darker, fell the shadows, fainter grew his flutt’ring breath
Then a strange and solemn stillness, ’twas the awful hush of death:
Hope we that a tender Saviour, unto gentle pity won,
Judged that dying man with mercy, whatsoe’er he left undone!
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEDD FFDD GGDD XXDD HHDD IIDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (88%) |
Metre | 10101011011101 101010100011101 001110101010101 1101110111111 10101111010101 111011101011101 101010101110101 111011101111101 111111001110111 100101110001111 101111101110101 111111101110101 101111101011101 10101010101011 001010101110011 111011101111101 101011101011111 101010101110011 111110100110101 1001000101111101 10101111110101 011011101011101 0111111011111110 1110111111111110 111111101011101 11111111111101 001011101111101 11101011111101 1010101101111 101010101010111 11101011010101 1110111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 2,162 |
Words | 373 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 51 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 204 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:52 min read
- 121 Views
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"The Final Reckoning" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33062/the-final-reckoning>.
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