Analysis of The Song of Right and Wrong
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
Feast on wine or fast on water
And your honour shall stand sure,
God Almighty's son and daughter
He the valiant, she the pure;
If an angel out of heaven
Brings you other things to drink,
Thank him for his kind attentions,
Go and pour them down the sink.
Tea is like the East he grows in,
A great yellow Mandarin
With urbanity of manner
And unconsciousness of sin;
All the women, like a harem,
At his pig-tail troop along;
And, like all the East he grows in,
He is Poison when he's strong.
Tea, although an Oriental,
Is a gentleman at least;
Cocoa is a cad and coward,
Cocoa is a vulgar beast,
Cocoa is a dull, disloyal,
Lying, crawling cad and clown,
And may very well be grateful
To the fool that takes him down.
As for all the windy waters,
They were rained like tempests down
When good drink had been dishonoured
By the tipplers of the town;
When red wine had brought red ruin
And the death-dance of our times,
Heaven sent us Soda Water
As a torment for our crimes.
Scheme | ABABCDXD ECAEXFEF GHXHGIGI XIHICJAJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111110 011111 111010 1010101 11101110 1110111 11111010 1011101 11101110 0110100 11110 010011 10101010 1111101 01101110 1110111 111010 1010011 10101010 1010101 10101010 1010101 01101110 1011111 11101010 101111 111111 101101 11111110 00111101 10111010 1011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,410 |
Words | 187 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 188 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 100 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Song of Right and Wrong" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/16023/the-song-of-right-and-wrong>.
Discuss this Gilbert Keith Chesterton poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In