Analysis of The Locomotive
Julian Tuwim 1894 (Łódź) – 1953 (Zakopane)
A big locomotive has pulled into town,
Heavy, humungus, with sweat rolling down,
A plump jumbo olive.
Huffing and puffing and panting and smelly,
Fire belches forth from her fat cast iron belly.
Poof, how she's burning,
Oof, how she's boiling,
Puff, how she's churning,
Huff, how she's toiling.
She's fully exhausted and all out of breath,
Yet the coalman continues to stoke her to death.
Numerous wagons she tugs down the track:
Iron and steel monsters hitched up to her back,
All filled with people and other things too:
The first carries cattle, then horses not few;
The third car with corpulent people is filled,
Eating fat frankfurters all freshly grilled.
The fourth car is packed to the hilt with bananas,
The fifth has a cargo of six grand pi-an-as.
The sixth wagon carries a cannon of steel,
With heavy iron girders beneath every wheel.
The seventh has tables, oak cupboards with plates,
While an elephant, bear, two giraffes fill the eighth.
The ninth contains nothing but well-fattened swine,
In the tenth: bags and boxes, now isn't that fine?
There must be at least forty cars in a row,
And what they all carry -- I simply don't know:
But if one thousand athletes, with muscles of steel,
Each ate one thousand cutlets in one giant meal,
And each one exerted as much as he could,
They'd never quite manage to lift such a load.
First a toot!
Then a hoot!
Steam is churning,
Wheels are turning!
More slowly - than turtles - with freight - on their - backs,
The drowsy - steam engine - sets off - down the tracks.
She chugs and she tugs at her wagons with strain,
As wheel after wheel slowly turns on the train.
She doubles her effort and quickens her pace,
And rambles and scrambles to keep up the race.
Oh whither, oh whither? go forward at will,
And chug along over the bridge, up the hill,
Through mountains and tunnels and meadows and woods,
Now hurry, now hurry, deliver your goods.
Keep up your tempo, now push along, push along,
Chug along, tug along, tug along, chug along
Lightly and sprightly she carries her freight
Like a ping-pong ball bouncing without any weight,
Not heavy equipment exhausted to death,
But a little tin toy, just a light puff of breath.
Oh whither, oh whither, you'll tell me, I trust,
What is it, what is it that gives you your thrust?
What gives you momentum to roll down the track?
It's hot steam that gives me my clickety-clack.
Hot steam from the boiler through tubes to the pistons,
The pistons then push at the wheels from short distance,
They drive and they push, and the train starts a-swooshin'
'Cuz steam on the pistons keeps pushin' and pushin';
The wheels start a rattlin', clatterin', chatterin'
Chug along, tug along, chug along, tug along! . . . .
Scheme | AAXBB CCCCDD EEFFGGXXHHXXII JJ HHXX KKCC LLMMNNOOPPQQRRDDSSEEXXAAAQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101011011 10111101 011010 10010010010 101110111010 11110 11110 11110 11110 11001001111 10101011011 1001011101 10011011101 1111001011 01101011011 011111011 1011001101 011111011010 01101111111 01101001011 1101010011001 01011011011 111001101101 01011011101 001101011011 11111101001 01111011011 11110111011 11110101101 01101011111 11011011101 101 101 1110 1110 11011011111 01011011101 11011101011 11101101101 11001001001 0101011101 11011011011 01011001101 1100100101 11011001011 11111101101 101101101101 1001011001 101111001101 11001001011 101011101111 11011011111 11111111111 11101011101 111111111 111010111010 010111011110 11011001101 1110101101 0110111 101101101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,652 |
Words | 483 |
Sentences | 28 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 6, 14, 2, 4, 4, 26 |
Lines Amount | 61 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 299 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 69 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 2:28 min read
- 122 Views
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"The Locomotive" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/24746/the-locomotive>.
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