Analysis of The Boys
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Where are they?--the friends of my childhood enchanted--
The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own,
And the warm, chubby fingers my palms have so wanted,
As when we raced over
Pink pastures of clover,
And mocked the quail's whir and the bumblebee's drone?
Have the breezes of time blown their blossomy faces
Forever adrift down the years that are flown?
Am I never to see them romp back to their places,
Where over the meadow,
In sunshine and shadow,
The meadow-larks trill, and the bumblebees drone?
Where are they? Ah! dim in the dust lies the clover;
The whippoorwill's call has a sorrowful tone,
And the dove's--I have wept at it over and over;--
I want the glad luster
Of youth, and the cluster
Of faces asleep where the bumblebees drone!
Scheme | XAXBBA CACDDA BABBBA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101111010 01101101011 0011010111110 111110 110110 010110011 10101111110 01001101111 1110111111110 11001 0101 01110011 111110011010 011101001 0011111110010 110110 110010 110011011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 740 |
Words | 137 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 195 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 23, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 66 Views
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"The Boys" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21041/the-boys>.
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