Analysis of The Mares Of The Camargue
George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)
[From the Mireio of Mistral]
A hundred mares, all white! their manes
Like mace-reed of the marshy plains
Thick-tufted, wavy, free o' the shears:
And when the fiery squadron rears
Bursting at speed, each mane appears
Even as the white scarf of a fay
Floating upon their necks along the heavens away.
O race of humankind, take shame!
For never yet a hand could tame,
Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdue
The mares of the Camargue. I have known,
By treason snared, some captives shown;
Expatriate from their native Rhone,
Led off, their saline pastures far from view:
And on a day, with prompt rebound,
They have flung their riders to the ground,
And at a single gallop, scouring free,
Wide-nostril'd to the wind, twice ten
Of long marsh-leagues devour'd, and then,
Back to the Vacares again,
After ten years of slavery just to breathe salt sea
For of this savage race unbent,
The ocean is the element.
Of old escaped from Neptune's car, full sure,
Still with the white foam fleck'd are they,
And when the sea puffs black from grey,
And ships part cables, loudly neigh
The stallions of Camargue, all joyful in the roar;
And keen as a whip they lash and crack
Their tails that drag the dust, and back
Scratch up the earth, and feel, entering their flesh, where he,
The God, drives deep his trident teeth,
Who in one horror, above, beneath,
Bids storm and watery deluge seethe,
And shatters to their depths the abysses of the sea.
Scheme | X AAXBBCC DDEFFFE GGHIIIH EXXCCCX JJHKKXH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110 01011111 11110101 110101101 010100101 10111101 101011101 1001110101001 1111011 11010111 1101110101 01101111 11011101 01011101 1110110111 01011101 111110101 01010101001 1110111 111101001 110101 1011110011111 1111011 01010100 110111111 11011111 01011111 01110101 01011110001 011011101 11110101 1101011001111 01111101 101100101 110100101 01011101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,405 |
Words | 258 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 187 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 81 Views
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"The Mares Of The Camargue" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15631/the-mares-of-the-camargue>.
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