Analysis of Behind the Hill

James Stephens 1882 (Dublin) – 1950



Behind the hill I met a man in green
  Who asked me if my mother had gone out?
I said she had. He asked me had I seen
  His castle where the people sing and shout
From dawn to dark, and told me that he had
  A crock of gold inside a hollow tree,
And I could have it.—I wanted money bad
  To buy a sword with, and I thought that he
Would keep his solemn word; so, off we went.
  He said he had a pound hid in the crock,
And owned the castle too, and paid no rent
  To any one, and that you had to knock
Five hundred times. I asked, 'Who reckoned up?'
  And he said, 'You insulting little pup!'


Scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG
Poetic Form Shakespearean sonnet 
Metre 0101110101 1111110111 1111111111 1101010101 1111011111 0111010101 01111110101 1101101111 1111011111 1111011001 0101010111 1101011111 1101111101 0111010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 589
Words 129
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 433
Words per stanza (avg) 124
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 28, 2023

38 sec read
125

James Stephens

James Stephens was an Irish Republican and the founding member of an originally unnamed revolutionary organisation in Dublin on 17 March 1858, later to become known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood, also referred to as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood by contemporaries. more…

All James Stephens poems | James Stephens Books

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