Analysis of Alf’s Eighth Bit
Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)
Vex not thou the banker's mind
(His what?) with a show of sense,
Vex it not, Willie, his mind,
Or pierce its pretence
On the supposition that it ever
Was other, or that this cheerful giver
Will give, save to the blind.
Come not anear the dark-browed sophist
Who on the so well-paid ground
Will cheerfully tell you a fist is no fist,
Come not here
With 2 and 2 making 4 in reason,
Knowest thou not the truth is never in season
In these quarters or Fleet St.?
In his eye there is death, I mean the banker's,
In his purse there is deceit,
It is he who buys gold-braid for the swankers
And gives you Australian iced rabbits' meat
In place of the roast beef of Britain,
And leaves you a park bench to sit on
If you git off the Embankment.
This is the kind of tone and Solemnity
That used to be used on the young,
My old man got no indemnity
But he swaller'd his tongue.
Like all his class was told to hold it in those days,
To mind their ‘p’s’ and their ‘q’s’ and their ways
An' be thankful for occasional holidays.
I don't quite see the joke any more,
Or why we should stand to attention
And lick the dirt off the floor
In the hope of honourable mention
From a great employer like Selfridge
Or a buyer of space in the papers.
I'm getting too old for such capers.
Scheme | ABABCCA AXXXDDE FEBEDXX GHGHIII JDJDXFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (23%) |
Metre | 1110101 1110111 1111011 1111 100101110 1101111010 111101 1110111 1101111 11001101111 111 1010010 11101110010 0110111 01111111010 0111101 1111111101 0110101101 011011110 011011111 11110010 11011100100 11111101 111110100 11111 111111111011 1111011011 11101010010 111101101 111111010 0101101 0011110 101010110 1010110010 110111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,244 |
Words | 251 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 35 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 194 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 1:16 min read
- 136 Views
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"Alf’s Eighth Bit" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13178/alf%E2%80%99s-eighth-bit>.
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