Analysis of By The Seaside : Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and gast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.
His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.
Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
'Do not fear! Heaven is as near,'
He said, 'by water as by land!'
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark,
They drift in cold embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
Scheme | ABCB ADXD XECE FGHG GIHI XJXJ IKFK XLCL XMXM XNEN XOXO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 101111 10101 101101 0011111 11111 10001 111111 101011 111111 11101 1111101 1011001 1011 110101 11111011 1010111 010111 011101 0101111 1110101 110101 011011 11110111 11110111 0011101 010101 11011000 01111101 0100101 010001 1001111 1110101 110111 11101 1101101 1000111 101101 110101 1101100101 1111111 1001010 111101 01010011 1010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,302 |
Words | 241 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 94 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 03, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 160 Views
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"By The Seaside : Sir Humphrey Gilbert" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18531/by-the-seaside-%3A-sir-humphrey-gilbert>.
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