Analysis of Fire!
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch 1863 (Bodmin, Cornwall) – 1944 (Cornwall)
By Sir W. S.
I.
St. Giles's street is fair and wide,
St. Giles's street is long;
But long or wide, may naught abide
Therein of guile or wrong;
For through St. Giles's, to and fro,
The mild ecclesiastics go
From prime to evensong.
It were a fearsome task, perdie!
To sin in such good company.
II.
Long had the slanting beam of day
Proclaimed the Thirtieth of May
Ere now, erect, its fiery heat
Illumined all that hallowed street,
And breathing benediction on
Thy serried battlements, St. John,
Suffused at once with equal glow
The cluster'd Archipelago,
The Art Professor's studio
And Mr. Greenwood's shop,
Thy building, Pusey, where below
The stout Salvation soldiers blow
The cornet till they drop;
Thine, Balliol, where we move, and oh!
Thine, Randolph, where we stop.
III.
But what is this that frights the air,
And wakes the curate from his lair
In Pusey's cool retreat,
To leave the feast, to climb the stair,
And scan the startled street?
As when perambulate the young
And call with unrelenting tongue
On home, mamma, and sire;
Or voters shout with strength of lung
For Hall &Co's Entire;
Or Sabbath-breakers scream and shout—
The band of Booth, with drum devout,
Eliza on her Sunday out,
Or Farmer with his choir:—
IV.
E'en so, with shriek of fife and drum
And horrid clang of brass,
The Fire Brigades of England come
And down St. Giles's pass.
Oh grand, methinks, in such array
To spend a Whitsun Holiday
All soaking to the skin!
(Yet shoes and hose alike are stout;
The shoes to keep the water out,
The hose to keep it in.)
V.
They came from Henley on the Thames,
From Berwick on the Tweed,
And at the mercy of the flames
They left their children and their dames,
To come and play their little games
On Morrell's dewy mead.
Yet feared they not with fire to play—
The pyrotechnics (so they say)
Were very fine indeed.
VI.
(P.S. by Lord Macaulay).
Then let us bless Our Gracious Queen and eke the Fire Brigade,
And bless no less the horrid mess they've been and gone
and made;
Remove the dirt they chose to squirt upon our best attire,
Bless all, but most the lucky chance that no one
shouted 'Fire!'
Scheme | ABCDCDEEDCFBGGHHIIEEEJEEJEJBKKHKHLLMLMNNNMOPQPQGGRNNRFSTUUUTGGTBFVWVMXM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111001 1 1111101 11111 11111101 011111 1111101 0111 1111 1001011 11011100 1 11010111 01010011 110111001 01011101 0100101 1110011 01111101 010010 0101010 01011 11010101 01010101 001111 1111101 110111 1 11111101 01010111 01101 11011101 010101 11101 0110101 1110010 11011111 111010 11010101 01111101 0101011 1101110 1 111111101 010111 010011101 01111 1110101 110110 110101 11010111 01110101 011110 1 11110101 110101 01010101 11110011 11011101 11101 111111011 0010111 010101 1 111010 1111101010101001 011101011101 01 0101111101101010 11110101111 1010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,108 |
Words | 389 |
Sentences | 30 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 71 |
Lines Amount | 71 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,624 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 383 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:00 min read
- 40 Views
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"Fire!" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35009/fire%21>.
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