Analysis of Kidnaped

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



I HELD my heart so far from harm,
I let it wander far and free
In mead and mart, without alarm,
Assured it must come back to me.
And all went well till on a day,
Learned Dr. Cupid wandered by
A search along our sylvan way
For some peculiar butterfly.
A flash of wings, a hurried drive,
A flutter and a short-lived flit;
This Scientist, as I am alive
Had seen my heart and captured it.
Right tightly now 'tis held among
The specimens that he has trapped,
And sings (Oh, love is ever young),
'Tis passing sweet to be kidnaped.


Scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH
Poetic Form Traditional rhyme
Metre 11111111 11110101 01010101 01111111 01111101 1110101 010110101 1101010 01110101 01000111 110011101 11110101 11011101 01001111 01111101 1101111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 517
Words 104
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 402
Words per stanza (avg) 102
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

31 sec read
47

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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