Analysis of Fool-Youngens
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Me an' Bert an' Minnie-Belle
Knows a joke, an' we won't tell!
No, we don't--'cause we don't know
_Why_ we got to laughin' so;
But we got to laughin' so,
'We ist kep' a-laughin'.
Wind wuz blowin' in the tree--
An' wuz only ist us three
Playin' there; an' ever' one
Ketched each other, like we done,
Squintin' up there at the sun
Like we wuz a-laughin'.
Nothin' funny anyway;
But I laughed, an' so did they--
An' we all three laughed, an' nen
Squint' our eyes an' laugh' again:
Ner we didn't ist _p'ten'_--
We wuz _shore-'nough_ laughin'.
'We ist laugh' an' laugh', tel Bert
Say he _can't_ quit an' it hurt.
Nen I _howl_, an' Minnie-Belle
She tear up the grass a spell
An' ist stop her yeers an' _yell_
Like she'd _die_ a-laughin'.
Never sich fool-youngens yit!
Nothin' funny,--not a bit!--
But we laugh' so; tel we whoop'
Purt'-nigh like we have the croup--
All so hoarse we'd wheeze an' whoop
An' ist _choke_ a-laughin'.
Scheme | AABBBB CCDDDB EEBXBB FFAAAB FXGGGB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 1111101 1011111 1110111 111111 111111 11101 111001 1110111 111101 1110111 111101 11101 101010 1111111 1111111 11011101 111011 11111 1111111 1111111 1111101 1110101 1110111 11101 101111 1010101 1111111 1111101 1111111 11101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 899 |
Words | 172 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 131 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 69 Views
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"Fool-Youngens" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20881/fool-youngens>.
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