Analysis of What the Ghost of the Gambler Said
Vachel Lindsay 1879 (Springfield) – 1931 (Springfield)
Where now the huts are empty,
Where never a camp-fire glows,
In an abandoned cañon,
A Gambler's Ghost arose.
He muttered there, "The moon's a sack
Of dust." His voice rose thin:
"I wish I knew the miner-man.
I'd play, and play to win.
In every game in Cripple-creek
Of old, when stakes were high,
I held my own. Now I would play
For that sack in the sky.
The sport would not be ended there.
'Twould rather be begun.
I'd bet my moon against his stars,
And gamble for the sun.
Scheme | ABCBDEFEGHIHJKLK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101110 11001101 0101011 010101 11010101 111111 11110101 110111 010010101 111101 11111111 111001 01111101 110101 11110111 010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 483 |
Words | 95 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 16 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 353 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 92 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 05, 2023
- 29 sec read
- 392 Views
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"What the Ghost of the Gambler Said" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37432/what-the-ghost-of-the-gambler-said>.
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