Analysis of Alf’s Tenth Bit
Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)
Scarce and thin, scarce and thin
The government's excuse,
Never at all will they do
Aught of the slightest use.
Over the dying half-wits blow,
Over the empty-headed, and the slow
Marchers, not getting forwarder,
While Ramsay MacDonald sleeps, sleeps.
Fester and rot, fester and rot,
And angle and tergiversate
One thing among all things you will not
Do, that is: think, before it's too late.
Election will not come very soon,
And those born with a silver spoon,
Will keep it a little longer,
Until the mind of the old nation gets a little stronger.
Scheme | XABACCDX EBEXFFDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101101 010001 1011111 110101 10010111 1001010001 10110100 11001011 10011001 01001 110111111 111101111 010111101 01110101 11101010 010110110101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 545 |
Words | 99 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 215 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 30 sec read
- 156 Views
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"Alf’s Tenth Bit" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13185/alf%E2%80%99s-tenth-bit>.
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