The Poem Patriotism by Sir Walter Scott - Essay Example

The poem is addressed directly to the audience since it does call the audience to action in order to go and mark such a man since the end of such a man would be ‘unwept, unhonoured and unsung’ as per the last line of the poem. Despite its brevity, there is immense depth in the poem with allusions, rhyme, metaphors and other poetic elements that show the merit of the poem as well as the merit of the poet. For example, the first point where allusions come into play is the idea of death but not physical death since that only comes at the end of the poem for the unpatriotic person.

Scott alludes that a man without pride in his own country has a dead soul and not only is it a dead soul it is dead in the extreme. That person’s physical death will result in him/her ‘doubly dying’ since the physical, as well as the spiritual aspects of the person, would die in such a scenario. The rhyme scheme of the poem figures largely in couplets which go together very well even though the third line seems to be slightly out of rhyme since it is a quote which the man in question has not said.

However, the continuation of the poem establishes a scheme which goes as AA B CC D EE FF GG HH and so on. This also establishes the iambic pentameter measure of the poem that makes it easy to read while the words themselves hold pointed meaning for the readers of the work. The imagery in the poem shines through with the idea of such a man being given titles, a proud name and wealth but no real soul since these worldly goods will end for that man once he has died. However, since he had no patriotism in his soul, his death remains unnoticed because he was concentrated only on his own self and never for the country to which he belonged.

This is indeed an image of despair which is only highlighted by the next section that shows that his death, much like his life remained without use to his country or even to those who were around him. In conclusion, it becomes easy to say that Scott himself comes across as being immensely patriotic and the poem in question certainly shows what he thinks about those who are unpatriotic. While patriotism may be a dangerous emotion for some, individuals such as Sir Walter Scott would make it the first criteria for having a soul or for being a good person.