Analysis of The Rising Of The Storm
Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906
THE lake's dark breast
Is all unrest,
It heaves with a sob and a sigh.
Like a tremulous bird,
From its slumber stirred,
The moon is a-tilt in the sky.
From the silent deep
The waters sweep,
But faint on the cold white stones,
And the wavelets fly
With a plaintive cry
O'er the old earth's bare, bleak bones.
And the spray upsprings
On its ghost-white wings,
And tosses a kiss at the stars;
While a water-sprite,
In sea-pearls dight,
Hums a sea-hymn's solemn bars.
Far out in the night,
On the wavering sight
I see a dark hull loom;
And its light on high,
Like a Cyclops' eye,
Shines out through the mist and gloom.
Now the winds well up
From the earth's deep cup,
And fall on the sea and shore,
And against the pier
The waters rear
And break with a sullen roar.
Up comes the gale,
And the mist-wrought veil
Gives way to the lightning's glare,
And the cloud-drifts fall,
A sombre pall,
O'er water, earth, and air.
The storm-king flies,
His whip he plies,
And bellows down the wind.
The lightning rash
With blinding flash
Comes pricking on behind.
Rise, waters, rise,
And taunt the skies
With your swift-flitting form.
Sweep, wild winds, sweep,
And tear the deep
To atoms in the storm.
And the waters leapt,
And the wild winds swept,
And blew out the moon in the sky,
And I laughed with glee,
It was joy to me
As the storm went raging by!
Scheme | AABCCBDDEBBEEFGHAGHHIBBIJJKLLKMMNOPNQQRSSRQQTDDTUUBVVB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111 1101 11101001 101001 11101 01101001 10101 0101 1110111 0011 10101 10011111 0011 11111 01001101 10101 0111 1011101 11001 101001 110111 01111 1011 1110101 10111 10111 0110101 00101 0101 0110101 1101 00111 111011 00111 011 1010101 0111 1111 010101 0101 1101 11101 1101 0101 111101 1111 0101 110001 00101 00111 01101001 01111 11111 1011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,293 |
Words | 253 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 54 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 19 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,023 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 251 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 16, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 118 Views
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"The Rising Of The Storm" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28943/the-rising-of-the-storm>.
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