Analysis of The Blind And The Dead
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
She lay like a saint on her copper couch;
Like an angel asleep she lay,
In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch
Past the Dead and sneak away.
Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze,
Who begged in the streets for bread.
Each day he had come for a year of days,
And groped his way to the Dead.
"What's the Devil's Harvest to-day?" he cried;
"A wanton with eyes of blue!
I've known too many a such," he sighed;
"Maybe I know this . . . mon Dieu!"
He raised the head of the heedless Dead;
He fingered the frozen face. . . .
Then a deathly spell on the watchers fell --
God! it was still, that place!
He raised the head of the careless Dead;
He fumbled a vagrant curl;
And then with his sightless smile he said:
"It's only my little girl."
"Dear, my dear, did they hurt you so!
Come to your daddy's heart. . . ."
Aye, and he held so tight, you know,
They were hard to force apart.
No! Paris isn't always gay;
And the morgue has its stories too:
You are a writer of tales, you say --
Then there is a tale for you.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFED DGXG DHDH IJIJ BFBF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1110110101 11100111 0011010111 1010101 11111011 1100111 1111110111 0111101 1010101111 0101111 111100111 1011111 11011011 1100101 1010110101 111111 110110101 1100101 01111111 1101101 11111111 111101 10111111 1011101 1101011 00111101 110101111 1110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,068 |
Words | 205 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 107 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 20, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 146 Views
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