Analysis of Snake

Padraic Colum 1881 (County Longford) – 1972 (Enfield)



BUT, Snake, you must not come where we abide,
For you would tempt us; we should hear you say:

'Oh, somewhere was a world was cold and spare,
And voiceless; somewhere was a Being was not

Engrossed with substance, with no fervencies
Of love and hatred, and he made me, Snake!

The wise Elohim, they who made the rest
Of Creatures, made them ail-too manifold

Mortised and rampired, jointed, vascular;
And I was put an alien in their world,

All head, all spine, all limb, all loin,
Swift as a bird and single as a fish.'

Above you fruits unglanced at bend and glow,
And, bare and voiceless, you do tempt us, Snake!


Scheme XA XX AB XX XX XX XB
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111101 1111111111 111011101 0101101011 01110111 1101001111 01111101 110111110 10110100 01111100011 11111111 1101010101 011111101 0101011111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 604
Words 116
Sentences 4
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 67
Words per stanza (avg) 16
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
81

Padraic Colum

Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. more…

All Padraic Colum poems | Padraic Colum Books

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