Analysis of An Exile
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
'Tis the census enumerator
A-singing all forlorn:
It's ho! for the tall potater,
And ho! for the clustered corn.
The whiffle-tree bends in the breeze and the fine
Large eggs are a-ripening on the vine.
'Some there must be to till the soil
And the widow's weeds keep down.
I wasn't cut out for rural toil
But they _won't_ let me live in town!
They 're not so many by two or three,
As they think, but ah! they 're too many for me.'
Thus the census man, bowed down with care,
Warbled his wood-note high.
There was blood on his brow and blood in his hair,
But he had no blood in his eye.
Scheme | ABABCC DEDEAX AFAF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101 010101 111011 0110101 0111001001 1110100101 11111101 0010111 110111101 11111101 1111101111 111111111011 101011111 101111 11111101011 11111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 576 |
Words | 118 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 146 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 89 Views
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"An Exile" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1697/an-exile>.
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