Analysis of My Literary Friend
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
Once I wrote a little poem which I thought was very fine,
And I showed the printer’s copy to a critic friend of mine,
First he praised the thing a little, then he found a little fault;
‘The ideas are good,’ he muttered, ‘but the rhythm seems to halt.’
So I straighten’d up the rhythm where he marked it with his pen,
And I copied it and showed it to my clever friend again.
‘You’ve improved the metre greatly, but the rhymes are bad,’ he said,
As he read it slowly, scratching surplus wisdom from his head.
So I worked as he suggested (I believe in taking time),
And I burnt the ‘midnight taper’ while I straightened up the rhyme.
‘It is better now,’ he muttered, ‘you go on and you’ll succeed,
‘It has got a ring about it—the ideas are what you need.’
So I worked for hours upon it (I go on when I commence),
And I kept in view the rhythm and the jingle and the sense,
And I copied it and took it to my solemn friend once more—
It reminded him of something he had somewhere read before.
Now the people say I’d never put such horrors into print
If I wasn’t too conceited to accept a friendly hint,
And my dearest friends are certain that I’d profit in the end
If I’d always show my copy to a literary friend.
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IIJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 111010101111101 011010101010111 111010101110101 0010111101010111 11110101111111 011010111110101 101010101011111 111110101010111 111110101010101 01101101110101 111011101110101 1110101100101111 1111100111111101 011010100010001 011010111110111 10101110111101 101011101110011 11110101010101 011011101110001 1111110101001 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 1,247 |
Words | 243 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 46 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 184 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 11, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 172 Views
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