Question

On the deck the Rover takes his stand,
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, “It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising Moon.”

“Canst hear,” said one, “the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore.”
“Now, where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell.”

They hear no sound, the swell is strong,
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along;
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
“Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!”

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

Read the given extract and write a poetic appreciation of the poem with the help of the following points.

• About the poet and the title
• The theme
• Language/poetic devices used in the poem
• Special features
• Your opinion about the poem

Answer 1

‘The Inchcape Rock’ by Robert Southey is a ballad of seventeen stanzas, also called quatrains as they are made of four lines each. The primary theme of the poem is that those who do bad things meet with a bad end at the hands of fate. The idea of ‘what goes around comes around’ is at the core of the poem. The ballad is composed in a narrative style and the rhyming couplets follow the rhyme scheme ‘aabb’. The poem also contains a lot of old English words. The poet embellishes his composition with a number of figures of speech such as Alliteration, Antithesis, Apostrophe, Consonance, Exclamation, Inversion, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Personification, Repetition, Simile, Synecdoche, and Transferred Epithet. The special feature of the poem is the vivid imagery that the poet employs to convey the message of poetic justice. The use of symbolism also adds to the beauty of the poem. The Inchcape Rock is symbolic of the trap that Sir Ralph had laid down for others, which he himself fell into. Through the poem has been composed in the 18th century, the message conveyed by it is relevant even today - that one should steer clear of wickedness and malice towards others, as that could be the cause of one’s own doom. The poem is didactic in nature, meaning that it conveys a moral through the story depicted in it. The moral of this poem is ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’. In my opinion, the poem is timeless, as its relevance can never diminish. For as long as humans suffer from the vice of jealousy, this poem will keep reminding them of its consequences.