Analysis of Faithless Sally Brown
Thomas Hood 1799 (London) – 1845 (London)
Young Ben he was a nice young man,
A carpenter by trade;
And he fell in love with Sally Brown,
That was a lady's maid.
But as they fetch'd a walk one day,
They met a press-gang crew;
And Sally she did faint away,
Whilst Ben he was brought to.
The Boatswain swore with wicked words,
Enough to shock a saint,
That though she did seem in a fit,
'Twas nothing but a feint.
"Come, girl," said he, "hold up your head,
He'll be as good as me;
For when your swain is in our boat,
A boatswain he will be."
So when they'd made their game of her,
And taken off her elf,
She roused, and found she only was
A coming to herself.
"And is he gone, and is he gone?"
She cried, and wept outright:
"Then I will to the water side,
And see him out of sight."
A waterman came up to her,--
"Now, young woman," said he,
"If you weep on so, you will make
Eye-water in the sea."
"Alas! they've taken my beau Ben
To sail with old Benbow;"
And her woe began to run afresh,
As if she'd said Gee woe!
Says he, "They've only taken him
To the Tender ship, you see";
"The Tender-ship," cried Sally Brown
"What a hard-ship that must be!"
"O! would I were a mermaid now,
For then I'd follow him;
But Oh!--I'm not a fish-woman,
And so I cannot swim.
"Alas! I was not born beneath
The virgin and the scales,
So I must curse my cruel stars,
And walk about in Wales."
Now Ben had sail'd to many a place
That's underneath the world;
But in two years the ship came home,
And all her sails were furl'd.
But when he call'd on Sally Brown,
To see how she went on,
He found she'd got another Ben,
Whose Christian-name was John.
"O Sally Brown, O Sally Brown,
How could you serve me so?
I've met with many a breeze before,
But never such a blow":
Then reading on his 'bacco box
He heaved a bitter sigh,
And then began to eye his pipe,
And then to pipe his eye.
And then he tried to sing "All's Well,"
But could not though he tried;
His head was turn'd, and so he chew'd
His pigtail till he died.
His death, which happen'd in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton toll'd the bell.
Scheme | XABA CDCD XEXE XFXF GHXH XIJI GFXF KLXL MFBF XMXM XNXN XXXA BOKO BLXL XPXP QJXJ XQXQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11110111 010011 011011101 110101 11110111 110111 01011101 111111 01011101 011101 11111001 110101 11111111 111111 111110101 010111 11111110 010101 11011101 010101 01110111 110111 11110101 011111 01001110 111011 11111111 110001 01110111 111110 001011101 111111 11110101 1010111 01011101 1011111 1110011 111101 11110110 011101 01111101 010001 11111101 010101 111111001 10101 10110111 010101 11111101 111111 11110101 110111 11011101 111111 111100101 110101 1101111 110101 01011111 011111 01111111 111111 11110111 11111 11110011 110101 11010100 010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,351 |
Words | 427 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 17 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 68 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 90 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:10 min read
- 162 Views
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"Faithless Sally Brown" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36639/faithless-sally-brown>.
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