Analysis of Variations of an Air
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
He called for his pipe
and he called for his bowl
and he called for his fiddlers three
after Lord Tennyson
Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester,
Growing more gay with age and with long days
Deeper in laughter and desire of life
As that Virginian climber on our walls
Flames scarlet with the fading of the year;
Called for his wassail and that other weed
Virginian also, from the western woods
Where English Raleigh checked the boast of Spain,
And lighting joy with joy, and piling up
Pleasure as crown for pleasure, bade me bring
Those three, the minstrels whose emblazoned coats
Shone with the oyster-shells of Colchester;
And these three played, and playing grew more fain
Of mirth and music; till the heathen came
And the King slept beside the northern sea.
after W.B. Yeats
Of an old King in a story
From the grey sea-folk I have heard
Whose heart was no more broken
Than the wings of a bird.
As soon as the moon was silver
And the thin stars began,
He took his pipe and his tankard,
Like an old peasant man.
And three tall shadows were with him
And came at his command;
And played before him for ever
The fiddles of fairyland.
And he died in the young summer
Of the world's desire;
Before our hearts were broken
Like sticks in a fire.
after Walt Whitman
Me clairvoyant,
Me conscious of you, old camarado,
Needing no telescope, lorgnette, field-glass, opera-glass, myopic pince-nez,
Me piercing two thousand years with eye naked and not ashamed;
The crown cannot hide you from me,
Musty old feudal-heraldic trappings cannot hide you from me,
I perceive that you drink.
(I am drinking with you. I am as drunk as you are.)
I see you are inhaling tobacco, puffing, smoking, spitting
(I do not object to your spitting),
You prophetic of American largeness,
You anticipating the broad masculine manners of these States;
I see in you also there are movements, tremors, tears, desire for the melodious,
I salute your three violinists, endlessly making vibrations,
Rigid, relentless, capable of going on for ever;
They play my accompaniment; but I shall take no notice of any accompaniment;
I myself am a complete orchestra.
So long.
Scheme | AABXAB C DXXXDEXFXGXDFXB H BICI DJIJ XKDK DDCD C LEXXBBXDGGXHXXDLDX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111 101011 00101111 11111 011111 011111001 101100 111111 1011110111 10010001011 11010101101 1101010101 111101101 0101010101 1101010111 0101110101 1011110111 1101010101 11010111 0111010111 1101010101 0011010101 1011 11110010 10111111 1111110 101101 11101110 001101 11110110 111101 0111011 011101 01011110 010110 01100110 101010 01101010 110010 10110 1010 1101111 10110011110101011 110110111100101 01101111 1011001010101111 101111 1110111111111 111101001101010 111101110 10101010010 101000110010111 1101101110101010100100 10111001010010010 100101001101110 111010011111101100100 111001100 11 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,198 |
Words | 393 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 1, 15, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 18 |
Lines Amount | 58 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 174 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 24, 2023
- 1:58 min read
- 83 Views
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"Variations of an Air" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/16037/variations-of-an-air>.
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