Analysis of The New Freethinker
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
John Grubby who was short and stout
And troubled with religious doubt,
Refused about the age of three
To sit upon the curate's knee;
(For so the eternal strife must rage
Between the spirit of the age
And Dogma, which, as is well known,
Does simply hate to be outgrown).
Grubby, the young idea that shoots,
Outgrew the ages like old boots;
While still, to all appearance, small,
Would have no Miracles at all;
And just before the age of ten
Firmly refused Free Will to men.
The altars reeled, the heavens shook,
Just as he read of in the book;
Flung from his house went forth the youth
Alone with tempests and the Truth.
Up to the distant city and dim
Where his papa had bought for him
A partnership in Chepe and Deer
Worth, say twelve hundred pounds a year.
But he was resolute. Lord Brute
Had found him useful; and Lord Loot,
With whom few other men would act,
Valued his promptitude and tact;
Never did even philanthrophy
Enrich a man more rapidly:
'Twas he that stopped the Strike in Coal,
For hungry children racked his soul;
To end their misery there and then
He filled the mines with Chinamen
Sat in that House that broke the Kings,
And voted for all sorts of things --
And rose from Under-Sec. to Sec.
With scarce a murmur or a check.
Some grumbled. Growlers who gave less
Than generous worship to success,
The little printers in Dundee,
Who got ten years for blasphemy,
(Although he let them off with seven)
Respect him rather less than heaven.
No matter. This can still be said:
Never to supernatural dread
Never to unseen deity,
Did Sir John Grubby bend the knee;
Nor was he bribed by fabled bliss
To kneel to any world but this.
The curate lives in Camden Town,
His lap still empty of renown,
And still across the waste of years
John Grubby, in the House of Peers,
Faces that curate, proud and free,
And never sits upon his knee.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMNBOOGDPPQQRRBBSSTTBBUUVVWWBB |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011101 01010101 01010111 1101011 110010111 01010101 01011111 1101111 100101011 1010111 11110101 11110011 01010111 10011111 01010101 11111001 11111101 0111001 110101001 11101111 0100101 11110101 1111011 11110011 11110111 101101 101101 01011100 11110101 11010111 111100101 110111 10111101 01011111 01110111 11010101 1101111 110010101 01010001 11111100 11111110 011101110 11011111 10101001 10101100 11110101 11111101 11110111 01010101 11110101 01010111 11000111 10110101 01010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,848 |
Words | 343 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 54 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,442 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 341 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:43 min read
- 42 Views
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"The New Freethinker" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/16010/the-new-freethinker>.
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