Analysis of A Battle
Isabella Valancy Crawford 1850 (Dublin) – 1887 (Toronto)
SLOWLY the Moon her banderoles of light
Unfurls upon the sky; her fingers drip
Pale, silvery tides; her armoured warriors
Leave Day's bright tents of azure and of gold,
Wherein they hid them, and in silence flock
Upon the solemn battlefield of Night
To try great issues with the blind old king,
The Titan Darkness, who great Pharoah fought
With groping hands, and conquered for a span.
The starry hosts with silver lances prick
The scarlet fringes of the tents of Day,
And turn their crystal shields upon their breasts,
And point their radiant lances, and so wait
The stirring of the giant in his caves.
The solitary hills send long, sad sighs
As the blind Titan grasps their locks of pine
And trembling larch to drag him toward the sky,
That his wild-seeking hands may clutch the Moon
From her war-chariot, scythed and wheeled with light,
Crush bright-mailed stars, and so, a sightless king,
Reign in black desolation! Low-set vales
Weep under the black hollow of his foot,
While sobs the sea beneath his lashing hair
Of rolling mists, which, strong as iron cords,
Twine round tall masts and drag them to the reefs.
Swifter rolls up Astarte's light-scythed car;
Dense rise the jewelled lances, groves of light;
Red flouts Mars' banner in the voiceless war
(The mightiest combat is the tongueless one);
The silvery dartings of the lances prick
His fingers from the mountains, catch his locks
And toss them in black fragments to the winds,
Pierce the vast hollow of his misty foot,
Level their diamond tips against his breast,
And force him down to lair within his pit
And thro' its chinks thrust down his groping hands
To quicken Hell with horror-for the strength
That is not of the Heavens is of Hell.
Scheme | AXXXXABXX CXXXX XXXXABXDXXX XAXXCXXDXXXXX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10010111 101010101 1100101100 1111110011 0111100101 010101011 1111010111 0101011101 1101010101 010111011 0101010111 0111010111 0111001011 0101010011 010011111 1011011111 010011110101 1111011101 10110010111 111101011 101010111 1100110111 1101011101 1101111101 1111011101 10111111 11011111 1111000101 0100101011 010011011 1101010111 0110110101 1011011101 1011010111 0111110111 0111111101 1101110101 1111010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,673 |
Words | 299 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 5, 11, 13 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 340 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 74 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:30 min read
- 84 Views
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"A Battle" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19881/a-battle>.
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