Analysis of Bi-Centennial Ode
Horatio Alger Jr 1832 ( Chelsea, Massachusetts)
From the door of the homestead the mother looks forth,
With a glance half of hope, half of fear,
For the clock in the corner now points to the hour
When the children she loves should appear.
For have they not promised, whatever betide,
On this their dear mother's birthday,
To gather once more round the family board,
Their dutiful service to pay?
From the East and the West, from the North and the South,
In communion and intercourse sweet,
Her children have come, on this festival day,
To sit, as of old, at her feet.
And our mother,-- God bless her benevolent face!--
How her heart thrills with motherly joys,
As she stands at the portal, with arms opened wide,
To welcome her girls and her boys.
And yet, when the first joyful greetings are o'er,
When the words of her welcome are said:
A shadow creeps over her motherly face,
As she silently thinks of the dead,
Of the children whose voices once rang through her fields,
Who shared all her hopes and alarms,
Till, tired with the burden and heat of the day,
They have fallen asleep in her arms.
They have gone from our midst, but their labors abide
On the fields where they prayerfully wrought;
They scattered the seed, but the harvest is ours,
By their toil and self-sacrifice bought.
As we scan the fair scene that once greeted their eyes,
As we tread the same paths which they trod,
Let us tenderly think of our elders by birth,
Who have gone to their rest, and their God.
God bless the old homestead! some linger there still,
In the haunts which their childhood has known,
While others have wandered to places remote,
And planted new homes of their own;
But Time cannot weaken the ties Love creates,
Nor absence, nor distance, impede
The filial devotion which thrills all our hearts,
As we bid our old mother God-speed.
Scheme | XABACDXD XEDEFGCG BHFHXIDI CXXXXJXJ XKXKXLXL |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110101011 101111111 1010010111010 101011101 1111101001 1111101 11011101001 11001011 101001101001 00100101 01011111001 11111101 0101011001001 101111001 111101011101 11001001 011011010110 101101011 0111001001 111001101 101011011101 11101001 110101001101 111001001 1111101111001 1011111 110011010110 11101101 111011111011 111011111 1110011101011 111111011 1101111011 00111111 11011011001 01011111 11101001101 11011001 0100010111101 1111011011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,750 |
Words | 328 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 279 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:39 min read
- 3 Views
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"Bi-Centennial Ode" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55623/bi-centennial-ode>.
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