Analysis of A Ballad Of The Town Water
Robert Fuller Murray 1863 – 1894
It is the Police Commissioners,
All on a winter's day;
And they to prove the town water
Have set themselves away.
They went to the north, they went to the south,
And into the west went they,
Till they found a civil, civil engineer,
And unto him did say:
'Now tell to us, thou civil engineer,
If this be fit to drink.'
And they showed him a cup of the town water,
Which was as black as ink.
He took three sips of the town water,
And black in the face was he;
And they turned them back and fled away,
Amazed that this should be.
And he has written a broad letter
And sealed it with a ring,
And the letter saith that the town water
Is not a goodly thing.
And they have met, and the Bailies all,
And eke the Councillors,
And they have ta'en the broad letter
And read it within the doors.
And there has fallen a great quarrel,
And a striving within the doors,
And quarrelsome words have the Bailies said,
And eke the Councillors.
And one saith, 'We will have other water,'
And another saith, 'But nay;'
And none may tell what the end shall be,
Alack and well-a-day!
I love the inoffensive frog,
'A little child, a limber elf,'
With health and spirits all agog,
He does the long jump in a bog
Or teaches men to swim and dive.
If he should be cut up alive,
Should I not be cut up myself?
So I intend to be straightway
An Anti-Vivisectionist;
I'll read Miss Cobbe five hours a day
And watch the little frogs at play,
With no desire to see their hearts
At work, or other inward parts,
If other inward parts exist.
Scheme | abcb xbdb dece cfbf cgcg xAch xhxA cbfb ijiikkj xbbbllx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110010100 110101 01110110 110101 1110111101 0010111 11101010101 010111 1111110101 111111 01110110110 111111 111110110 0100111 011110101 011111 011100110 011101 0010110110 110101 01110011 0101 011110110 0110101 011100110 00100101 010011011 0101 0111111010 0010111 011110111 10101 11000101 01010101 11010101 11011001 11011101 11111101 1111111 1101111 1101 111111001 01010111 110101111 11110101 11010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,467 |
Words | 299 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 46 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 115 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 105 Views
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