Analysis of A Good Man

James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)



A good man never dies--
In worthy deed and prayer
And helpful hands, and honest eyes,
If smiles or tears be there:
Who lives for you and me--
Lives for the world he tries
To help--he lives eternally.
A good man never dies.

Who lives to bravely take
His share of toil and stress,
And, for his weaker fellows' sake,
Makes every burden less,--
He may, at last, seem worn--
Lie fallen--hands and eyes
Folded--yet, though we mourn and mourn,
A good man never dies.


Scheme AbabcacA dedefafA
Poetic Form
Metre 011101 010101 01010101 111111 111101 110111 11110100 011101 111101 111101 01110101 1100101 111111 110101 10111101 011101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 455
Words 90
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 173
Words per stanza (avg) 43
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

27 sec read
866

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. more…

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