Analysis of Poseidon's Law
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
When the robust and Brass-bound Man commissioned first for sea
His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and "Mariner," said he,
"Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
"Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin whose votive meal and sale
At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
But you the unhoodwinked wave shall test--the immediate gulf condemn--
Except ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, or Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
Nor make at all, or all make good, your bulwarks and your boasts.
Now and henceforward serve unshod, through wet and wakeful shifts,
A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts--
The wide and windward-opening eye, the large and lavish hand,
The soul that cannot tell a lie--except upon the land!"
In dromond and in catafract--wet, wakeful, windward-eyed--
He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
Splendaciously mendacious rolled the Brass-bound Man ashore....
The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply.
The God that hailed, the keel that sailed are changed beyond recall,
But the robust and Brass-bound Man he is not changed at all!
From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
Revenges there the Brass-bound Man his long-enforced truce!
Scheme | AABB XXCC DDEE FFGG HHII JJKK IXLL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (86%) |
Metre | 10010111010111 11010101010011 01010100111101 1101111101111 1101110111101 110101010100101 110111100100101 01110101111111 111111111111 01001010111111 11110111110101 1111111111011 1011111011 01000101111111 010101001010101 01110101010101 0100111101 11010101110101 110101101111 10101011101 01101110101 01110111010101 0111011111011 10010111111111 110111110101 11010010101010 011111111 11011111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,709 |
Words | 288 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 49 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 195 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 41 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 150 Views
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"Poseidon's Law" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33312/poseidon%27s-law>.
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