Analysis of Variation on a Theme
Franklin P. Adams 1881 (Chicago, Illinois) – 1960 (New York City, New York)
June 30th, 1919
Notably fond of music, I dote on a
clearer tone
Than ever was blared by a bugle or zoomed
by a saxophone;
And the sound that opens the gates for me of
a Paradise revealed
Is something akin to the note revered by the
blesséd Eugene Field,
Who sang in pellucid phrasing that I perfectly
will recall
Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher that the
boy brings up the hall.
But sweeter to me than the sparrow's song or
the goose's autumn honks
Is the sound of the ice in the shaker as the
barkeeper mixes a Bronx.
Between the dark and the daylight, when I'm
worried about The Tower,
Comes a pause in the day's tribulations that
is known as the cocktail hour;
And my soul is sad and jaded, and my heart
is a thing forlorn,
And I view the things I have written with a
sickening, scathing scorn.
Oh, it's then I fare with some other slave who
is hired for the things he writes
To a Den of Sin where they mingle gin--such
as Lipton's, Mouquin's or Whyte's,
And my spirit thrills to a music sweeter than
Sullivan or Puccini--
The swash of the ice in the shaker as he mixes
a Dry martini.
The drys will assert that metallic sound is the
selfsame canon made
By the ice in a shaker that holds a drink
like orange or lemonade;
But on the word of a traveled man and a
bard who has been around,
The sound of tin on ice and gin is a snappier,
happier sound.
And I mean to hymn, as soon as I have a
moment of leisure time,
The chill susurrus of cocktail ice in an adequae
piece of rhyme.
But I've just had an invitation to hark, at a
beckoning bar,
To the sound of the ice in the shaker as the
barkeeper mixes a Star.
Scheme | X ABXBXCACDEAEFGAG HIXIXJAJXGXGXDGD AKLKAMFMAHLHANAN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111 10011101110 101 11011101011 1010 00111001111 01001 110011010110 11011 11011011100 11 101101001010 11101 1101110111 01101 101101001010 11001 010100111 1001010 1010010101 1110110 01111010011 10101 01101111010 100101 11111111011 11010111 10111111011 110111 011011010101 1001010 0110100101110 01010 011011010110 1101 10100101101 1101101 11011010100 111101 01111101101 1001 01111111110 101101 011111011 111 111110101110 1001 101101001010 11001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,621 |
Words | 324 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 16, 16, 16 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 313 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 81 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 104 Views
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"Variation on a Theme" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/14190/variation-on-a-theme>.
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