Analysis of Farewell and adieu....

Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)



Farewell and adieu to you, Harwich Ladies,
   Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
   For we've received orders to work to the eastward
   Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.

We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles,
   We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas,
   Until we strike something that doesn't expect us.
   From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!

The first thing we did was to dock in a minefield,
   Which isn't a place where repairs should be done;
   And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water
   With  tri-nitro-toluol  hogging  our  run.

The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin,
   With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky.
   But what in the--Heavens can you do with six-pounders?
   So we fired what we had and we bade him good-bye.

Farewell and adieu to you, Harwich Ladies,
   Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
   For we've received orders to work to the eastward
   Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more


Scheme ABCB xaxa xdxd xexe ABCB
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 100111110 1001111001 110110111010 111001111111 11011110110 1101101011 011110110011 111111111 01111111001 11001101111 01111011010 1110110101 0111111100100 111011011001 1100101111110 1110111011111 100111110 1001111001 110110111010 111001111111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,034
Words 179
Sentences 10
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 38
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 150
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

56 sec read
365

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India and his tales for children. more…

All Rudyard Kipling poems | Rudyard Kipling Books

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