Analysis of The Aristocrat
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky,
And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery
The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf;
But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself.
O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door,
Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more,
Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird;
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word.
Scheme | AABBCCXXDD AAEEFFGGHHII |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010100011111 1110111110101 1101110111101 01010101111111 111010101111001 1111010101101 110101001110001 011100110011100 01011101011101 101010100010101 11110111011101 01110111111111 10101011111010 010001011111110 111111111110101 11111110111111 11011101110111 101011100010111 10110111101 0111010111101 0110110111011 101010100010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,330 |
Words | 260 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 12 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 48 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 524 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 129 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 78 Views
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