Analysis of Jonah
Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)
A purple whale
Proudly sweeps his tail
Towards Nineveh;
Glassy green
Surges between
A mile of roaring sea.
“O town of gold,
Of splendour multifold,
Lucre and lust,
Leviathan’s eye
Can surely spy
Thy doom of death and dust.”
On curving sands
Vengeful Jonah stands.
“Yet forty days,
Then down, down,
Tumbles the town
In flaming ruin ablaze.”
With swift lament
Those Ninevites repent.
They cry in tears,
“Our hearts fail!”
The whale, the whale!
Our sins prick us like spears.”
Jonah is vexed;
He cries, “What next? what next?”
And shakes his fist.
“Stupid city,
The shame, the pity,
The glorious crash I’ve missed.”
Away goes Jonah grumbling,
Murmuring and mumbling;
Off ploughs the purple whale,
With disappointed tail.
Scheme | AAXBBC DDEFFE GGHIIH JJXAAX KKLCCL MMAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101 10111 01100 101 1001 011101 1111 111 101 11 1101 111101 1101 10101 1101 111 1001 0101001 1101 1101 1101 1011 0101 1011111 1011 111111 0111 1010 01010 0100111 01110100 1000100 110101 10101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 745 |
Words | 128 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 4 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 16 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 93 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 20 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 67 Views
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"Jonah" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/31139/jonah>.
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