Analysis of The Bulls
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Six bulls I saw as black as jet,
With crimsoned horns and amber eyes
That chewed their cud without a fret,
And swished to brush away the flies,
Unwitting their soon sacrifice.
It is the Corpus Christi fête;
Processions crowd the bannered ways;
Before the alters women wait,
While men unite in hymns of praise,
And children look with angel gaze.
The bulls know naught of holiness,
To pious pomp their eyes are blind;
Their brutish brains will never guess
The sordid passions of mankind:
Poor innocents, they wait resigned.
Till in a black room each is penned,
While from above with cruel aim
Two torturers with lances bend
To goad their fieriness to flame,
To devil them to play the game.
The red with rage and mad with fear
They charge into the roaring ring;
Against the mockery most near
Of human might their hate they fling,
In futile, blind blood-boltering.
And so the day of unction ends;
Six bulls are dragged across the sand.
Ferocity and worship blends,
Religion and red thirst hold hands . . .
Dear Christ! 'Tis hard to understand!
Scheme | ABABX XCXCC XDXDD EFEFF GHGHH IJIXJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11111111 1110101 11110101 01110101 0101110 110101011 0101011 01010101 1110111 01011101 01111100 11011111 11011101 01010111 11001101 10011111 11011101 1100111 111111 11011101 01110111 11010101 01010011 11011111 010111 0101111 11110101 01000101 01001111 1111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,024 |
Words | 185 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 138 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 67 Views
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