Analysis of El Wuish
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
El Wuish a small harbour on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea. The intricacies of a great and almost unbroken extent of coral reefs, renders the navigation rather difficult, and extremely tedious. The boatmen often beguile the night by singing. The imagery of the following song is taken from some Persian translations kindly placed in my hands by Sir Gore Ouseley : of course, it is a very free paraphrase.
Leila, the flowers are withered now,
The flowers I scattered at thy side
What time Zoharah's* silver star
Was mirror'd in the fountain's tide ;
The fountain played, and flung its drops
Like pearls amid thy raven hair;
I had not seen the mirror'd star,
But thou too wert reflected there.
Thyself and thy sweet phantom self
That parting hour were both my own.
My heart seemed like the fountain, made
To image love and thee alone.
When thou had past, that faithless wave
No likeness of thy grace retained.
But though my Leila's self be gone,
Yet Leila's memory has remained.
Thou dost consume thy dwelling-place—
Take from thy wreath of flowers a sign,
The tulip hides its withered core,
And such a burning heart is mine.
I call thine image to my sleep,
I wake and watch the waves again,
I think thy words, I dream thy smiles,
Ah! Arab maid, I dream in vain.
* The Eastern name for the planet Venus.
Scheme | X XABA XCBC XDXD XEXE XFXF XXXX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101101001001101101000101010100111011001010101000010100011001011100100101001110111001010101111111111010110 100101101 010110111 111101 1100011 01010111 11011101 11110101 11110101 1011101 110100111 11110101 11010101 1111111 11011101 1111111 11100101 11011101 111111001 01011101 01010111 11110111 11010101 11111111 11011101 0101101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,328 |
Words | 234 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 128 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on July 11, 2016
Modified by Madeleine Quinn on February 15, 2020
- 1:12 min read
- 98 Views
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"El Wuish" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/44972/el-wuish>.
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