Analysis of The Boy Out Of Church
Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)
As Jesus and his followers
Upon a Sabbath morn
Were walking by a wheat field
They plucked the ears of corn.
They plucked it, they rubbed it,
They blew the husks away,
Which grieved the pious pharisees
Upon the Sabbath day.
And Jesus said, 'A riddle
Answer if you can,
Was man made for the Sabbath
Or Sabbath made for man?'
I do not love the Sabbath,
The soapsuds and the starch,
The troops of solemn people
Who to Salvation march.
I take my book, I take my stick
On the Sabbath day,
In woody nooks and valleys
I hide myself away.
To ponder there in quiet
God's Universal Plan,
Resolved that church and Sabbath
Were never made for man.
Scheme | ABXB XCAC DEFE FGDG XCXC XEFE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11001100 010101 0101011 110111 111111 110101 110101 010101 0101010 10111 1111010 110111 1111010 01001 0111010 110101 11111111 10101 0101010 11101 1101010 10101 0111010 010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 619 |
Words | 123 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 83 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 20 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 82 Views
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"The Boy Out Of Church" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/31177/the-boy-out-of-church>.
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