Analysis of Rebecca
Hilaire Belloc 1870 (La Celle-Saint-Cloud) – 1953
Who Slammed Doors For Fun And Perished Miserably
A trick that everyone abhors
In little girls is slamming doors.
A wealthy banker's little daughter
Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater
(By name Rebecca Offendort),
Was given to this furious sport.
She would deliberately go
And slam the door like billy-o!
To make her uncle Jacob start.
She was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild;
She was an aggravating child...
It happened that a marble bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the door this little lamb
Had carefully prepared to slam,
And down it came! It knocked her flat!
It laid her out! She looked like that.
Her funeral sermon (which was long
And followed by a sacred song)
Mentioned her virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her vices too,
And showed the deadful end of one
Who goes and slams the door for fun.
The children who were brought to hear
The awful tale from far and near
Were much impressed, and inly swore
They never more would slam the door,
-- As often they had done before.
Scheme | X AABBCC DDCCCC CCEECC FFXCGG XXHHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (27%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 111110101000 0111001 01011101 010101010 1101011 110101 110111001 11010001 01011101 11010101 11110111 11010101 1111001 11010101 1101101 01011101 11000111 01111101 11011111 010010111 01010101 10010111 11010101 0101111 11010111 01010111 01011101 0101011 11011101 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 992 |
Words | 187 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 161 Views
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"Rebecca" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19216/rebecca>.
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