Analysis of Farewell
'Farewell. What a subject! How sweet
It looks to the careless observer!
So simple; so easy to treat
With tenderness, mark you, and fervour.
Farewell. It's a poem; the song
Of nightingales crying and calling!'
O Reader, you're utterly wrong.
It's not. It's appalling!
And yet when she asked me to send
Some trifle of verse to remind her
Of days that had come to an end,
And one she was leaving behind her,
It looked, as we stood on the shore,
A theme so entirely delightsome
That I, like a lunatic, swore
(Quite calmly) to write some.
I've toiled with unwavering pluck;
I've struggled if ever a man did;
Infringed every postulate, stuck
At nothing, - nay, once, to be candid,
I shifted the cadence - designed
A fresh but unauthorised fare-well;
'Twas plausible, too, but I find
The thing doesn't wear well.
I know that it shouldn't be hard;
That dozens, who claim to be poets,
Could scribble off stuff by the yard
And fare very well; and I know it's
A theme that the Masters of Rhyme
Have written some excellent verse on,
Which proves, as I take it, that I'm
Not that sort of person.
But that we can leave. It remains
To state that my present appearance
Is something too awful, my brains
Are tending to wild incoherence;
My mental condition's absurd;
My thoughts are at sixes and sevens,
Inextrica - lord! what a word!
Inextri - good heavens!
My dear, you can do what you like, -
Forgive, or despise, or abuse me -
But frankly, I'm going on strike,
And really you'll have to excuse me.
Indeed it's my only resource,
For, sure as I stuck to my promise, I'd
Be booked in a week for a course
Of sui-cum-homicide.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EBEBFGFG HXHXIJIJ KXKXGXGX LMLMNONO PGPGQRQR |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1100111 111010010 11011011 11001101 1101001 1110010 11011001 111010 01111111 110111010 11111111 011110010 11111101 01101001 1110101 110111 11101001 110110011 01100101 110111110 11001001 011111 11001111 011011 11111011 110111110 11011101 011010111 01101011 110110011 11111111 111110 11111101 111110010 11011011 110110010 110101 111110010 11101 1110 11111111 011011011 11011011 010111011 01111010 1111111101 11001101 110110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,578 |
Words | 303 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 204 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 4 Views
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"Farewell" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55937/farewell>.
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