Analysis of A Certain People

George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)



As Puritans they prominently wax,
And none more kindly gives and takes hard knocks.
Strong psalmic chanting, like to nasal cocks,
They join to thunderings of their hearty thwacks.
But naughtiness, with hoggery, not lacks
When Peace another door in them unlocks,
Where conscience shows the eyeing of an ox
Grown dully apprehensive of an Axe.
Graceless they are when gone to frivolousness,
Fearing the God they flout, the God they glut.
They need their pious exercises less
Than schooling in the Pleasures: fair belief
That these are devilish only to their thief,
Charged with an Axe nigh on the occiput.


Scheme ABBAAABAACDEEC
Poetic Form
Metre 1100110001 0111010111 111011101 111111101 111111 110101011 1101010111 11010111 10111111 1001110111 111101001 1100010101 1111010111 11111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 597
Words 103
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 487
Words per stanza (avg) 101
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
72

George Meredith

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. more…

All George Meredith poems | George Meredith Books

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