Analysis of Of the Cuckoo
John Bunyan 1628 (Elstow, Bedfordshire) – 1688 (London)
Thou booby, say'st thou nothing but cuckoo?
The robin and the wren can thee outdo.
They to us play thoróugh their little throats,
Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes.
But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do
Little but suck our eggs, and sing cuckoo.
Thy notes do not first welcome in our spring,
Not dost thou its first tokens to us bring.
Birds less than thee by far, like prophets, do
Tell us 'tis coming, though not by cuckoo.
Nor dost thou summer have away with thee,
Though thou a yawling, bawling cuckoo be.
When thou dost cease among us to appear,
Then doth our harvest bravely crown our year.
But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do
Little but suck our eggs, and sing cuckoo.
Since cuckoos forward not our early spring,
Nor help with notes to bring our harvest in:
And since while here she only makes a noise,
So pleasing unto none as girls and boys,
The formalist we may compare her to,
For he doth suck our eggs, and sing cuckoo.
Scheme | aabb AA ccaa ddee AA cx ffaa |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101111011 010001111 1111111101 1111010101 1111011111 1011101011 11111100101 1111110111 1111111101 111101111 1111010111 1101111 1111011101 111010101101 1111011111 1011101011 11010110101 11111110100 0111110101 1101011101 0100110101 1111101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 948 |
Words | 181 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 106 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 13, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 44 Views
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