Analysis of The Magnet and the Churn



A MAGNET hung in a hardware shop,
And all around was a loving crop
Of scissors and needles, nails and knives,
Offering love for all their lives;
But for iron the Magnet felt no whim,
Though he charmed iron, it charmed not him,
From needles and nails and knives he'd turn,
For he'd set his love on a Silver Churn!
His most aesthetic,
Very magnetic
Fancy took this turn -
"If I can wheedle
A knife or needle,
Why not a Silver Churn?"

And Iron and Steel expressed surprise,
The needles opened their well-drilled eyes,
The pen-knives felt "shut up," no doubt,
The scissors declared themselves "cut out,"
The kettles they boiled with rage, 'tis said,
While every nail went off its head,
And hither and thither began to roam,
Till a hammer came up - and drove it home,
While this magnetic
Peripatetic
Lover he lived to learn,
By no endeavour,
Can Magnet ever
Attract a Silver Churn!


Scheme AAXXBBCCDDCEEC FFGGHHIIDDCJJC
Poetic Form
Metre 01010011 010110101 110010101 10011111 1110010111 111101111 110010111 1111110101 11010 10010 10111 1111 01110 110101 010010101 010101111 01111111 010010111 010111111 110011111 010010111 1010110111 11010 0010 101111 11010 11010 010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 857
Words 164
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 14, 14
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 340
Words per stanza (avg) 80
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 15, 2023

48 sec read
268

William Schwenck Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist librettist poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan of which the most famous include HMS Pinafore The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre The Mikado These as well as most of their other Savoy operas continue to be performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies repertory companies schools and community theatre groups Lines from these works have become part of the English language such as short sharp shock What never Well hardly ever and Let the punishment fit the crime Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads an extensive collection of light verse accompanied by his own comical drawings His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti numerous stories poems lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Gilberts lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since Source - Wikipedia more…

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