Analysis of The happy hunting grounds
Emily Pauline Johnson 1861 – 1913
Into the rose gold westland, its yellow prairies roll,
World of the bison's freedom, home of the Indian's soul.
Roll out, O seas! in sunlight bathed,
Your plains wind-tossed, and grass enswathed.
Farther than vision ranges, farther than eagles fly,
Stretches the land of beauty, arches the perfect sky,
Hemm'd through the purple mists afar
By peaks that gleam like star on star.
Fringing the prairie billows, fretting horizon's line,
Darkly green are slumb'ring wildernesses of pine,
Sleeping until the zephyrs throng
To kiss their silence into song.
Whispers freighted with odour swinging into the air,
Russet needles as censers swing to an altar, where
The angels' songs are less divine
Than duo sung twixt breeze and pine.
Laughing into the forest, dimples a mountain stream,
Pure as the airs above it, soft as a summer dream,
O! Lethean spring thou'rt only found
Within this ideal hunting ground.
Surely the great Hereafter cannot be more than this,
Surely we'll see that country after Time's farewell kiss.
Who would his lovely faith condole?
Who envies not the Red-skin's soul,
Sailing into the cloud land, sailing into the sun,
Into the crimson portals ajar when life is done?
O! dear dead race, my spirit too
Would fain sail westward unto you.
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEFF GGEE HHII JJAA KKLL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 0101110110101 1101101101001 1111011 1111011 1011010101101 1001110100011 11010101 11111111 101010100101 10111111 10010101 11110011 10111100101 101011111101 01011101 11011101 1001010100101 1101011110101 1111101 01101101 1001010101111 101111010111 1111011 1110111 1001011100101 0101010011111 11111101 11110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,259 |
Words | 211 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 142 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 15, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 59 Views
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"The happy hunting grounds" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/12621/the-happy-hunting-grounds>.
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