Analysis of A Glimpse Of China
I
In a Sampan
(Min River, Fo Kien)
Up in the misty morning,
Up past the gardened hills,
With the rhythmic stroke of the rowers,
While the blue deep pales and thrills!
Past the rice-fields green low-lying,
Where the sea-gull's winging down
From the fleets of junks and sampans
And the ancient Chinese Town!
II
In a Chair
(Foo-cbow)
From the bright and blinding sunshine,
From the whirling locust's song,
Into the dark and narrow fissures
Of the streets I am borne along.
Here and there dusky-beaming
A sun-shaft broadens and drops
On the brown bare crowd slow-passing,
The crowd of the open shops.
We move on over the bridges
With their straight-hewn blocks of stone,
And their quaint grey animal figures,
And the booths the hucksters own.
Behind a linen awning
Sits an ancient wight half-dead,
And a little dear of a girl is
Examining — his head.
On a bended bamboo shouldered,
Bearing a block of stone,
Two worn-out Coolies half-naked
Utter their grunting groan.
Children, almond-eyed beauties,
Impossibly mangy curs,
Take part in the motley stream of
Insouciant passengers.
This is the Dream, the Vision
That comes to me and greets —
The Vision of Retribution
In the labyrinthine streets.
III
'Caste'
These Chinese toil, and yet they do not starve,
And they obey, and yet they are not slaves.
It is the 'free-born' fuddled Englishmen
Who grovel rotting in their living graves.
These Chinese do not fawn with servile lips;
They lift up equal eyes that ask and scan.
Their degradation has escaped at least
That choicest curse of all — the Gentleman!
IV
Over the Samovar
(Foo-chow)
'Yes, I used always to think
That you Russians knew
How to make the good drink
As none others do.
'And I thought moreover,
(Not with the epicures),
You might search the world over
For such Women as yours.
'In both these matters now
I perceive I was right,
And I really can't tell you how
Much I delight
'In my third (Thanks, another cup!)
Idea of the fun,
When your Country gets up
And follows the sun!
'And just as in Europe, see,
There's a Conqueror Nation,
So why not in Asia be
A like jubilation?
'Taught as well as organized,
The eternal Coolie,
From being robbed and despised,
Takes to cutting throats duly!
'But — please, don't be flurried;
For I daresay by then
You'll be comfortably buried,
Ladies and gentlemen!
'No more, thanks! I must be going!
I'm so glad to have made this
Opportunity of knowing
Some more Russian ladies!'
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 0010 11011 1001010 110101 10101101 1011101 10111110 1011101 10111010 0010011 1 001 11 1010101 101011 010101010 10111101 101110 0111001 10111110 0110101 11110010 1111111 011110010 0010101 0101010 1110111 001011011 010011 10100110 100111 1111110 101101 1010110 0100101 11001011 010100 1101010 111101 0101010 00011 1 1 1011011111 0101011111 11011110 1101001101 1011111101 1111011101 101010111 1101110100 1 1001 11 111111 11101 111011 11101 011010 1101 1110110 111011 011101 101111 01101111 1101 01110101 010101 111011 01001 0110101 1010010 1110101 01010 111110 00101 1101001 1110110 111110 111011 11100010 100100 11111110 1111111 0100110 111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 2,347 |
Words | 430 |
Sentences | 24 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 87 |
Lines Amount | 87 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,884 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 426 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 20, 2023
- 2:10 min read
- 52 Views
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"A Glimpse Of China" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13985/a-glimpse-of-china>.
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