Analysis of Brothers
Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 (Stratford, London) – 1889 (Dublin)
How lovely the elder brother’s
Life all laced in the other’s,
Lóve-laced!—what once I well
Witnessed; so fortune fell.
When Shrovetide, two years gone,
Our boys’ plays brought on
Part was picked for John,
Young Jóhn: then fear, then joy
Ran revel in the elder boy.
Their night was come now; all
Our company thronged the hall;
Henry, by the wall,
Beckoned me beside him:
I came where called, and eyed him
By meanwhiles; making my play
Turn most on tender byplay.
For, wrung all on love’s rack,
My lad, and lost in Jack,
Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip;
Or drove, with a diver’s dip,
Clutched hands down through clasped knees—
Truth’s tokens tricks like these,
Old telltales, with what stress
He hung on the imp’s success.
Now the other was bráss-bóld:
Hé had no work to hold
His heart up at the strain;
Nay, roguish ran the vein.
Two tedious acts were past;
Jack’s call and cue at last;
When Henry, heart-forsook,
Dropped eyes and dared not look.
Eh, how áll rúng!
Young dog, he did give tongue!
But Harry—in his hands he has flung
His tear-tricked cheeks of flame
For fond love and for shame.
Ah Nature, framed in fault,
There ’s comfort then, there ’s salt;
Nature, bad, base, and blind,
Dearly thou canst be kind;
There dearly thén, deárly,
I’ll cry thou canst be kind.
Scheme | AABBCDDEEFFFGGHBIIJJKKLLMMNNMMOOPQQRRMMMMBM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11001010 1110010 1111111 101101 11111 101111 11111 1111111 11000101 111111 10100101 10101 101011 1111011 111011 111101 111111 110101 110111 1110101 111111 110111 11111 1110101 101011111 111111 111101 11101 1100101 110111 110101 110111 11111 111111 110011111 111111 111011 110101 11101111 101101 101111 11011111 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,310 |
Words | 233 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 43 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 960 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 230 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 16, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 187 Views
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"Brothers" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15849/brothers>.
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