Analysis of The Emperor's Glove. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fifth)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
On St. Bavon's tower, commanding
Half of Flanders, his domain,
Charles the Emperor once was standing,
While beneath him on the landing
Stood Duke Alva and his train.
Like a print in books of fables,
Or a model made for show,
With its pointed roofs and gables,
Dormer windows, scrolls and labels,
Lay the city far below.
Through its squares and streets and alleys
Poured the populace of Ghent;
As a routed army rallies,
Or as rivers run through valleys,
Hurrying to their homes they went
'Nest of Lutheran misbelievers!'
Cried Duke Alva as he gazed;
'Haunt of traitors and deceivers,
Stronghold of insurgent weavers,
Let it to the ground be razed!'
On the Emperor's cap the feather
Nods, as laughing he replies:
'How many skins of Spanish leather,
Think you, would, if stitched together,
Make a glove of such a size?'
Scheme | ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF CGCXG HIHHI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110010 1110101 101001110 10111010 1110011 10101110 1010111 11101010 10101010 1010101 11101010 1010011 10101010 11101110 10011111 111001 1110111 111001 1101010 1110111 101001010 1110101 110111010 11111010 1011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 804 |
Words | 147 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 25 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 128 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 43 sec read
- 110 Views
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"The Emperor's Glove. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fifth)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18850/the-emperor%27s-glove.-%28birds-of-passage.-flight-the-fifth%29>.
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