Analysis of In Bohemia
John Boyle O'Reilly 1844 (Dowth) – 1890 (Boston)
I'D rather live in Bohemia than in any other land;
For only there are the values true,
And the laurels gathered in all men's view.
The prizes of traffic and state are won
By shrewdness or force or by deeds undone;
But fame is sweeter without the feud,
And the wise of Bohemia are never shrewd.
Here, pilgrims stream with a faith sublime
From every class and clime and time,
Aspiring only to be enrolled
With the names that are writ in the book of gold;
And each one bears in mind or hand
A palm of the dear Bohemian land.
The scholar first, with his book—a youth
Aflame with the glory of harvested truth;
A girl with a picture, a man with a play,
A boy with a wolf he has modeled in clay;
A smith with a marvelous hilt and sword,
A player, a king, a plowman, a lord—
And the player is king when the door is past.
The plowman is crowned, and the lord is last!
I'd rather fail in Bohemia than win in another land;
There are no titles inherited there,
No hoard or hope for the brainless heir;
No gilded dullard native born
To stare at his fellow with leaden scorn:
Bohemia has none but adopted sons;
Its limits, where Fancy's bright stream runs;
Its honors, not garnered for thrift or trade,
But for beauty and truth men's souls have made.
To the empty heart in a jeweled breast
There is value, maybe, in a purchased crest;
But the thirsty of soul soon learn to know
The moistureless froth of the social show;
The vulgar sham of the pompous feast
Where the heaviest purse is the highest priest;
The organized charity, scrimped and iced,
In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ;
The smile restrained, the respectable cant,
When a friend in need is a friend in want;
Where the only aim is to keep afloat,
And a brother may drown with a cry in his throat.
Oh, I long for the glow of a kindly heart and the grasp of a friendly hand,
And I'd rather live in Bohemia than in any other land.
Scheme | ABBCCDDEEFFAAGGHHIIJJ AKKLLMMNNOOPPQQRRXXSSAA |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101001001010101 110110101 0010100111 0101100111 1101111101 111100101 001101001101 110110101 110010101 010101101 10111100111 01110111 0110101001 010111101 01101011001 01101001101 01101111001 0110100101 0100101001 00101110111 0101100111 1101001001100101 1111001001 111110101 1101101 1111101101 01001110101 11011111 1101101111 1110011111 101010011 11101000101 1010111111 01110101 010110101 10100110101 010100101 001101001001 0101001001 1010110101 1010111101 001011101011 1111011010100110101 01101001001010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,877 |
Words | 363 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 21, 23 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 735 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 181 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 22, 2023
- 1:50 min read
- 95 Views
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"In Bohemia" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22010/in-bohemia>.
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