Analysis of Expenses

Gamaliel Bradford 1863 (Boston, Massachusetts) – 1932



I'm sick to death of money, of the lack of it, that is,
And of practising perpetually small economies;
Of paring off a penny here, another penny there,
Of the planning and the worrying, the everlasting care.

The savages went naked and no doubt digested fruit,
And when they longed for partridge all they had to do was shoot.
But it may be Mrs. Savage was extravagant in paint
And all the little Savages made juvenile complaint.

'I want a bow like We-We's. I want a fine canoe.
I don't have half such dandy things as other fellers do.'
And Mrs. Savage quite agreed it was an awful shame.
So Mr. Savage sighed about expenses just the same.


Scheme XXAA BBCC DDEE
Poetic Form Quatrain  (67%)
Metre 11111101011111 0110100010100 11010101010101 10100010000101 0100110011101 01111101111111 111110101010001 01010100110001 1101111110101 11111101110101 01010101111101 11010101010101
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 634
Words 121
Sentences 12
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 41
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 165
Words per stanza (avg) 39
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
53

Gamaliel Bradford

Gamaliel Bradford was an American biographer, critic, poet, and dramatist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the sixth of seven men called Gamaliel Bradford in unbroken succession, of whom the first, Gamaliel Bradford, was a great-grandson of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. His grandfather, Dr. Gamaliel Bradford of Boston, was a noted abolitionist. more…

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