Analysis of Wrestling
John Crowe Ransom 1888 (Pulaski) – 1974 (Gambier)
At last came threshing-time, the manly season.
We kept the thresher thundering by daylight,
And rested all the sweeter after dark,
Telling of tales, and washing in the river.
But one there was, some twenty miles a stranger,
Who boasted that he was a mighty wrestler
And had not met that valiant pair of shoulders
That he could not put down.
We had a champion there. He looked and listened,
He measured off his man, he made his mind up,
And thus he brought great honor to his county:
'My friend, I've heard you bragging, heard you braying,
And now I say, for God's sake come and wrestle.'
And thus appealed, the other came, for God's sake,
And they did wrestle.
They sprang, they gripped, they strained and rocked and twisted,
They pounded much good sod to dust and powder,
They ripped the garments off each other vainly
And showed us many naked bulging muscles,
And still were even.
But while the tide of battle ran so equal,
I heard a sound, I took it for a voice,
I almost saw it, spitting out a passage
Between the haggard jaws of my poor hero,
The voice as of a man almost despairing,
Hoping again though all his hopes had failed:
'By God, I'll have you down in one more minute!'
And it was as he said; for in a minute
He had him down, by God.
Scheme | XXABBBXX XXCADXDXBCXX DXXXXXEEX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111101010 1101010011 0101010101 10110100010 11111101010 110111010100 01111101110 111111 110100111010 11011111111 01111101110 1111110111 01111111010 01010101111 01110 11111101010 11011111010 11010111010 01110101010 01010 11011101110 1101111101 1111101010 01010111110 0111011010 1001111111 11111101110 01111110010 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,230 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 12, 9 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 321 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 79 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 127 Views
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"Wrestling" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22426/wrestling>.
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