Analysis of The Frightened Ploughman
John Clare 1793 (Helpston) – 1864 (St Andrew's Hospital)
I went in the fields with the leisure I got,
The stranger might smile but I heeded him not,
The hovel was ready to screen from a shower,
And the book in my pocket was read in an hour.
The bird came for shelter, but soon flew away;
The horse came to look, and seemed happy to stay;
He stood up in quiet, and hung down his head,
And seemed to be hearing the poem I read.
The ploughman would turn from his plough in the day
And wonder what being had come in his way,
To lie on a molehill and read the day long
And laugh out aloud when he'd finished his song.
The pewit turned over and stooped oer my head
Where the raven croaked loud like the ploughman ill-bred,
But the lark high above charmed me all the day long,
So I sat down and joined in the chorus of song.
The foolhardy ploughman I well could endure,
His praise was worth nothing, his censure was poor,
Fame bade me go on and I toiled the day long
Till the fields where he lived should be known in my song.
Scheme | AABB CCDD CCEE DDEE XXEE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (80%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11001101011 01011111011 010110111010 0010110110110 01111011101 01111011011 11101001111 01111001011 0111111001 01011011011 1110101011 01101111011 0111001111 10101110111 101101111011 111101001011 010111101 11111011011 11111011011 101111111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 950 |
Words | 196 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 149 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 59 sec read
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