Analysis of I Smoke My Pipe
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
I can't extend to every friend
In need a helping hand--
No matter though I wish it so,
'Tis not as Fortune planned;
But haply may I fancy they
Are men of different stripe
Than others think who hint and wink,--
And so--I smoke my pipe!
A golden coal to crown the bowl--
My pipe and I alone,--
I sit and muse with idler views
Perchance than I should own:--
It might be worse to own the purse
Whose glutted bowels gripe
In little qualms of stinted alms;
And so I smoke my pipe.
And if inclined to moor my mind
And cast the anchor Hope,
A puff of breath will put to death
The morbid misanthrope
That lurks inside--as errors hide
In standing forms of type
To mar at birth some line of worth;
And so I smoke my pipe.
The subtle stings misfortune flings
Can give me little pain
When my narcotic spell has wrought
This quiet in my brain:
When I can waste the past in taste
So luscious and so ripe
That like an elf I hug myself;
And so I smoke my pipe.
And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds,
I watch the phantom's flight,
Till alien eyes from Paradise
Smile on me as I write:
And I forgive the wrongs that live,
As lightly as I wipe
Away the tear that rises here;
And so I smoke my pipe.
Scheme | xaxaxbxb xcxcxbxB xdxdxbxB xexexbxB xfxfxbxB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (33%) |
Metre | 110111001 010101 11011111 111101 1111101 1111001 11011101 011111 01011101 110101 110111001 011111 11111101 110101 0101111 011111 01011111 010101 01111111 01010 11011101 010111 11111111 011111 01010101 111101 11010111 110011 11110101 110011 1111111 011111 01011101 11011 11001110 111111 01010111 110111 01011101 011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,151 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 21, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 60 Views
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"I Smoke My Pipe" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20914/i-smoke-my-pipe>.
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