Analysis of To The Happy Hunting Grounds
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
Wide windy reaches of high stubble field;
A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines;
A wagon moving in a 'cloud by day.'
Two city sportsmen with a dove between,
Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep
A solitary dove, the only dove
In twenty counties, and it sick, or else
It were not there. Two guns that fire as one,
With thunder simultaneous and loud;
Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone!
And later, in the gloaming, comes a man
The worthy local coroner is he,
Renowned all thereabout, and popular
With many a remain. All tenderly
Compiling in a game-bag the debris,
He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.
The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock,
Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet,
To die of age in some far foreign land.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMLLNOPQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011101 0111101101 0101000111 1101010101 1101010101 010010101 0101001111 10111111011 110010001 1101011101 0100010101 0101010011 01110100 1100011100 0100011001 1101010111 0111110101 11111101 1111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 753 |
Words | 143 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 19 |
Lines Amount | 19 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 595 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 140 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 113 Views
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"To The Happy Hunting Grounds" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2020/to-the-happy-hunting-grounds>.
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