Analysis of The Picture Book
Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)
When I was not quite five years old
I first saw the blue picture book,
And Fraulein Spitzenburger told
Stories that sent me hot and cold;
I loathed it, yet I had to look:
It was a German book.
I smiled at first, for she'd begun
With a back-garden broad and green,
And rabbits nibbling there: page one
Turned; and the gardener fired his gun
From the low hedge: he lay unseen
Behind: oh, it was mean!
They're hurt, they can't escape, and so
He stuffs them head-down in a sack,
Not quite dead, wriggling in a row,
And Fraulein laughed, 'Ho, ho! Ho, ho!'
And gave my middle a hard smack,
I wish that I'd hit back.
Then when I cried she laughed again;
On the next page was a dead boy
Murdered by robbers in a lane;
His clothes were red with a big stain
Of blood, he held a broken toy,
The poor, poor little boy!
I had to look: there was a town
Burning where every one got caught,
Then a fish pulled a nigger down
Into the lake and made him drown,
And a man killed his friend; they fought
For money, Fraulein thought.
Old Fraulein laughed, a horrid noise.
'Ho, ho!' Then she explained it all
How robbers kill the little boys
And torture them and break their toys.
Robbers are always big and tall:
I cried: I was so small.
How a man often kills his wife,
How every one dies in the end
By fire, or water or a knife.
If you're not careful in this life,
Even if you can trust your friend,
You won't have long to spend.
I hated it--old Fraulein picked
Her teeth, slowly explaining it.
I had to listen, Fraulein licked
Her fingers several times and flicked
The pages over; in a fit
Of rage I spat at it...
And lying in my bed that night
Hungry, tired out with sobs, I found
A stretch of barren years in sight,
Where right is wrong, but strength is right,
Where weak things must creep underground,
And I could not sleep sound.
Scheme | ABAABB CDCCDD EFEEFF XGHHGG IXIIJJ KLKKLL MNMMNN OPOAPP QRQQRR |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 11101101 0111 10111101 11111111 110101 11111101 10110101 010100111 1001001011 10111101 011111 11110101 11111001 1111001 0111111 01110011 111111 11111101 10111011 10110001 11011011 11110101 011101 11111101 101100111 10110101 01010111 00111111 11011 1110101 11110111 11010101 01010111 1011101 111111 10110111 110011001 110110101 11110011 10111111 111111 1101111 01100101 1111011 01010101 01010001 111111 01001111 101011111 01110101 11111111 1111110 011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,768 |
Words | 357 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 154 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:48 min read
- 71 Views
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"The Picture Book" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/31196/the-picture-book>.
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