Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The action in the poem is described by a seemingly objective speaker who appears to be a stand-in for Melville himself. He never makes direct reference to himself.
Form and Meter
The poem is made up of two stanzas with parallel structure. Each stanza is a septet, made up of seven lines. The first follows a rough ABABCC rhyme scheme but the second is looser.
Metaphors and Similes
John Brown's beard is compared to a meteor.
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration is present in the S sounds of "slowly swaying" and "Stabs shall" and in the C sounds of "cut on the crown."
Irony
Genre
Memorial poetry, war poetry
Setting
The setting of the poem is the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.
Tone
Tragic, ominous
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is John Brown. The antagonist is the institutions of slavery and Southern law.
Major Conflict
The major conflict in the poem is between the Southern attempt to erase John Brown from history and the persistence of his cause and legacy.
Climax
The poem reaches its climax when Brown dies and the speaker reflects on the image of his beard.
Foreshadowing
Understatement
The line "the cut is on the crown" is an understatement of the injuries Brown sustained during his raid on Harper's Ferry. While his greatest injury was sustained on his head, from the blow of a sword hilt, he was also slashed and beaten close to death.
Allusions
The two main allusions the poem makes are historical. The first is to the figure of John Brown himself and the second is to the Shenandoah Valley in the state of Virginia.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The phrase "Shenandoah" is used to make general reference to the dividing line of where slavery is legal. The "crown" in the fifth line is a metonymy of the fractures in the body politic of the United States right before the Civil War.
Personification
The line "so your future veils its face" personifies the future of the nation in Brown's pained, dying face.
