Analysis of Birds In Alarm

John Clare 1793 (Helpston) – 1864 (St Andrew's Hospital)



The firetail tells the boys when nests are nigh
And tweets and flies from every passer-bye.
The yellowhammer never makes a noise
But flies in silence from the noisy boys;
The boys will come and take them every day,
And still she lays as none were ta'en away.

The nightingale keeps tweeting-churring round
But leaves in silence when the nest is found.
The pewit hollos 'chewrit' as she flies
And flops about the shepherd where he lies;
But when her nest is found she stops her song
And cocks [her] coppled crown and runs along.
Wrens cock their tails and chitter loud and play,
And robins hollo 'tut' and fly away.


Scheme AABBCC DDEEFFCC
Poetic Form
Metre 011011111 01011100101 0110101 1101010101 01110111001 01111101101 01001111 1101010111 0111111 0101010111 1101111101 011110101 1111010101 010110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 608
Words 113
Sentences 6
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 8
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 244
Words per stanza (avg) 56
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
84

John Clare

John Clare was an English poet in his time he was commonly known as the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet more…

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