Analysis of The Daisies
Edith Nesbit 1858 (Kennington, Surrey ) – 1924 (New Romney, Kent)
In the great green park with the wooden palings -
The wooden palings so hard to climb,
There are fern and foxglove, primrose and violet,
And green things growing all the time;
And out in the open the daisies grow,
Pretty and proud in their proper places,
Millions of white-frilled daisy faces,
Millions and millions--not one or two.
And they call to the bluebells down in the wood:
'Are you out--are you in? We have been so good
All the school-time winter through,
But now it's playtime,
The gay time, the May time;
We are out and at play. Where are you?'
In the gritty garden inside the railings,
The spiky railings all painted green,
There are neat little beds of geraniums and fuchsia
With never a happy weed between.
There's a neat little grass plot, bald in places,
And very dusty to touch;
A respectable man comes once a week
To keep the garden weeded and swept,
To keep it as we don't want it kept.
He cuts the grass with his mowing-machine,
And we think he cuts it too much.
But even on the lawn, all dry and gritty,
The daisies play about.
They are so brave as well as so pretty,
You cannot keep them out.
I love them, I want to let them grow,
But that respectable man says no.
He cuts off their heads with his mowing-machine
Like the French Revolution guillotine.
He sweeps up the poor little pretty faces,
The dear little white-frilled daisy faces;
Says things must be kept in their proper places
He has no frill round his ugly face -
I wish I could find his proper place!
Scheme | ABXBCAADEEDBBD AFGFAGXHHFGIJIJCCFFAAAAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0011110101 01011111 1110110100 01110101 0100100101 1001011010 101111010 100101111 0111011001 11111011111 1011101 1111 011011 111011111 00101001010 010101101 1111011010001 110010101 10110111010 0101011 0010011101 110101001 111111111 1101111001 01111111 11010111010 010101 1111111110 110111 111111111 110100111 11111111001 10101010 11101101010 0110111010 11111011010 111111101 111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,454 |
Words | 280 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 24 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 577 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 139 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 129 Views
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"The Daisies" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8938/the-daisies>.
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