Analysis of The Pillar Box

Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)



The pillar box is fat and red,
The pillar box is high;
It has the flattest sort of head
And not a nose or eye,
But just one open nigger mouth
That grins when I go by.

The pillar box is very round
But hungry all the day;
Although it doesn't make a sound,
Folks know it wants to say,
"Give me some letter sandwiches
To pass the time away."

"A postage stamp I like to eat
Or gummy letterette."
I see the people on the street,
If it is fine or wet,
Give something to the greedy thing;
They never quite forget.

The pillar box is quite a friend;
When Father goes away
My Mother has such lots to send,
Far letters every day,
And so I drop them in its mouth
When I go out to play.


Scheme ABABCB DEDEXE FAFGXG HEHECE
Poetic Form
Metre 01011101 010111 1101111 010111 11110101 111111 01011101 110101 1110101 111111 11110100 110101 01011111 1101 11010101 111111 11010101 110101 01011101 110101 11011111 1101001 01111011 111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 657
Words 143
Sentences 6
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 128
Words per stanza (avg) 35
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 12, 2023

42 sec read
118

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. more…

All Katherine Mansfield poems | Katherine Mansfield Books

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