Analysis of The Hosts
Alan Seeger 1888 (New York City) – 1916
Purged, with the life they left, of all
That makes life paltry and mean and small,
In their new dedication charged
With something heightened, enriched, enlarged,
That lends a light to their lusty brows
And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet,
These are the men that have taken vows,
These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, --
These are the men that are moved no more
By the will to traffic and grasp and store
And ring with pleasure and wealth and love
The circles that self is the center of;
But they are moved by the powers that force
The sea forever to ebb and rise,
That hold Arcturus in his course,
And marshal at noon in tropic skies
The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain
And drift out over the peopled plain.
They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.
Mark how their columns surge! They seem
To follow the goddess with outspread wings
That points toward Glory, the soldier's dream.
With bayonets bare and flags unfurled,
They scale the summits of the world
And fade on the farthest golden height
In fair horizons full of light.
Comrades in arms there -- friend or foe --
That trod the perilous, toilsome trail
Through a world of ruin and blood and woe
In the years of the great decision -- hail!
Friend or foe, it shall matter nought;
This only matters, in fine: we fought.
For we were young and in love or strife
Sought exultation and craved excess:
To sound the wildest debauch in life
We staked our youth and its loveliness.
Let idlers argue the right and wrong
And weigh what merit our causes had.
Putting our faith in being strong --
Above the level of good and bad --
For us, we battled and burned and killed
Because evolving Nature willed,
And it was our pride and boast to be
The instruments of Destiny.
There was a stately drama writ
By the hand that peopled the earth and air
And set the stars in the infinite
And made night gorgeous and morning fair,
And all that had sense to reason knew
That bloody drama must be gone through.
Some sat and watched how the action veered --
Waited, profited, trembled, cheered --
We saw not clearly nor understood,
But yielding ourselves to the masterhand,
Each in his part as best he could,
We played it through as the author planned .
Scheme | AABBCDCDEEFFGHGHIIJKJKLLMM NONOBXPXPCQRQRSSTTXUXUVVWWXBXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011111 111100101 0110101 110100101 110111101 001101011101 110111101 11010010001 110111111 1011100101 011100101 0101110101 1111101011 010101101 1110011 010110101 0111011111 011100101 11110101101 11110111 110010111 1101100101 11010101 11010101 011010101 01010111 1011111 11010011 1011100101 0011010101 11111101 110100111 110100111 11011 11010101 11101011 11100101 0111010101 101010101 010101101 111100101 01010101 0111010111 01001100 11010101 1011100101 010100100 011100101 011111101 110101111 110110101 10100101 11110101 110001101 10111111 111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,222 |
Words | 412 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 26, 30 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 872 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 206 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:04 min read
- 113 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Hosts" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/345/the-hosts>.
Discuss this Alan Seeger poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In