Analysis of Across The Pampas
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 1840 (Petworth House) – 1922 (United Kingdom)
Dost thou remember, oh, dost thou remember,
Here as we sit at home and take our rest,
How we went out one morning on a venture
In the West?
Hast thou forgotten, in these English hedgerows,
How the great Pampas rolled out like the sea?
Never a daisy in that mighty meadow!
Never a tree!
Full were our hearts upon that sunny morning;
Stout--handed and stout--hearted went we forth.
The warm wind in our faces breathed us fortune
From the North;
And high in heaven the sun stood for a token.
We had no other sign by which to steer.
No landmark is there in the Earth's great ocean,
For mariner.
Dost thou remember how, when night was falling,
There in the middle plain, as best we might,
We set our little tent up as a fortress
For the night?
Dost thou remember how, through the night watches,
We listened to the voices of the plain,
The owls and plovers and the bold bischachas,
Talking like men?
Drowsy we sat, and watched our horses feeding,
Dim through the night, while over the tent's mouth
The Cross was turning like a clock and reeling
In the South.
But, as the night grew out and we grew chilly,
Under our blankets safe we crept and warm,
Full of good heart and each with loaded pistols
Close to his arm;
And so dreamed pleasant dreams of far off faces,
And trees and fields which we had loved in youth,
All in a maze of present apprehension
Mingled uncouth;
And how we travelled on and ever onwards,
Still in the red path of the setting sun,
Until into the heart of a great woodland
We had come;
And there saw, round about our strange encampment,
Flocks of bright birds which flew and screamed at us,
Red cardinals and woodpeckers and parrots
Multitudinous;
And on the lake black--headed swans were sailing,
And in the morning to the water's brink
Flamingoes, like the rising sun, came wading
Down to drink.
Dost thou remember, oh, dost thou remember
How, in that fatal wood, the mancaròn
Found out a poisonous herb before his fellows,
And fed thereon;
And how we left him, and how Caesar sickened,
And how the sky grew dark and overcast,
And how two tragic days we rode on silent
In the blast;
And how the wind grew icy and more icy,
Until we could not feel our hands or feet,
As sick at heart we sought in vain a hiding
From the sleet;
Lighting at last on a deserted post--house,
Where we found shelter from the wind, but nought
Of entertainment for our souls or comfort
Of any sort;
And how in that wild pass brave Caesar dying
Stretched out his arm towards the promised land,
And saw as in a dream the white hills lying
Close at hand,--
For, ere the sun set, suddenly that evening,
The great plain opened out beneath our feet,
And, in a valley far below, lay gleaming,
With square and street,
And spire and dome and pinnacle, uprising
White on the bosom of a mountain slope,
To our amazement bodily the city
Of our hope.
Dost thou remember, oh, dost thou remember
How the bells rang as, sick and travel--worn,
A weary crew, we made our solemn entry
To the town?
Strangely, as phantoms out of the great desert,
We came into the city, and at last
Heard sound of Christian singing in the churches
As we passed:
And laid at length our weary limbs in rapture
Between the clean sheets of a Christian bed.
Oh! there are things I think we shall remember
When we are dead!
Scheme | Abab ccxd efgf gxga ehch cxci ejej dxcx ckgk cglx xccc emem Aicx xnxn coeo cbpx elel eoeo eqdq Axdx pncn arar |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (64%) |
Metre | 11010111010 11111101101 11111101010 001 1101001101 1011011101 1001001101 1001 101010111010 1100110111 011010101110 101 010100111010 1111011111 1111001110 1100 11010111110 1001011111 111010111010 101 11010110110 1101010101 010100011 1011 101101101010 1101110011 01110101010 001 11011101110 10101011101 11110111010 1111 01110111110 0101111101 1001110010 1011 01110101010 1001110101 0101011011 111 011101101010 1111110111 1100010010 1 01011101010 0001010101 110101110 111 11010111010 101101011 110100101110 0101 01111011010 010111010 01110111110 001 01011100110 01111110111 11111101010 101 10111001011 1111010111 10101101110 1101 01011111010 1111010101 01100101110 111 11011100110 01110101101 00010101110 1101 01010100010 1101010101 110010100010 1101 11010111010 1011110101 010111101010 101 10110110110 1101010011 11110100010 111 011110101010 0101110101 11111111010 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,194 |
Words | 613 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 22 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 88 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 116 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:04 min read
- 124 Views
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"Across The Pampas" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38640/across-the-pampas>.
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