Analysis of Written for my Son ... upon his Master's First Bringing in a Rod
Mary Barber 1685 – 1755
OUR master, in a fatal hour,
Brought in this Rod, to shew his pow'r.
O dreadful birch ! O baleful tree !
Thou instrument of tyranny !
Thou deadly damp to youthful joys !
The sight of thee our peace destroys.
Not Damocles, with greater dread,
Beheld the weapon o'er his head.
That sage was surely more discerning,
Who taught to play us into learning,
By graving letters on the dice :
May heav'n reward the kind device,
And crown him with immortal fame,
Who taught at once to read and game !
Take my advice ; pursue that rule ;
You'll make a fortune by your school.
You'll soon have all the elder brothers,
And be the darling of the mothers.
O may I live to hail the day,
When boys shall go to school to play !
To grammar rules we'll bid defiance ;
For play will then become a science.
Scheme | XXAABBCC DDEEFF GGHH IIJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1010001010 101111111 11011101 11001100 11011101 011110101 1101101 10101011 111101010 111110110 1110101 11010101 01110101 11111101 11010111 11010111 111101010 010101010 11111101 11111111 110111010 111101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 806 |
Words | 145 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 150 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 31 Views
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"Written for my Son ... upon his Master's First Bringing in a Rod" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/26705/written-for-my-son-...-upon-his-master%27s-first-bringing-in-a-rod>.
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