Analysis of The Flowers
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic,
almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress,
are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us
like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote;
the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose,
nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April
as the English thrush. -- THE ATHEN]AEUM.
Buy my English posies!
Kent and Surrey may --
Violets of the Undercliff
Wet with Channel spray;
Cowslips from a Devon combe --
Midland furze afire --
Buy my English posies
And I'll sell your heart's desire!
Buy my English posies!
You that scorn the May,
Won't you greet a friend from home
Half the world away?
Green against the draggled drift,
Faint and frail and first --
Buy my Northern blood-root
And I'll know where you were nursed:
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"
Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;
All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies!
Here's to match your need --
Buy a tuft of royal heath,
Buy a bunch of weed
White as sand of Muysenberg
Spun before the gale --
Buy my heath and lilies
And I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie --
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky --
Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies!
You that will not turn --
Buy my hot-wood clematis,
Buy a frond o' fern
Gathered where the Erskine leaps
Down the road to Lorne --
Buy my Christmas creeper
And I'll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin --
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn --
Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies!
Here's your choice unsold!
Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,
Buy the kowhai's gold
Flung for gift on Taupo's face,
Sign that spring is come --
Buy my clinging myrtle
And I'll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine --
Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ~ratas~ twine --
Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies!
Ye that have your own
Buy them for a brother's sake
Overseas, alone.
Weed ye trample underfoot
Floods his heart abrim --
Bird ye never heeded,
Oh, she calls his dead to him!
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land --
Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.
Scheme | abxxxcd BdxedxBx BddexfxfdxgH BixiajkjllgH BmxmxnenoogH BpdpxdcdqqgH Brxrxdxdkkss |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111110010010 101001110110101 111100001011011011 101001010010110001 0111001111101011 1111001101101110010 1010101 11101 10101 100101 11101 110101 1101 11101 01111010 11101 11101 1110111 10101 101011 10101 111011 0111101 101010110111 1110101011101 10111001011 101001010011101 11101 11111 1011101 10111 11111 10101 111010 0111111 101110101 10101011011 10101110101 101001010011101 11101 11111 1111100 10111 101011 10111 11101 0111101 10111011001 11111011101 10111110111 101001010011101 11101 11101 1011101 1011 111111 11111 111010 0111111 101010110101 11001011011 101010110101 101001010011101 11101 11111 1110101 10101 111001 1111 111010 1111111 1011011110101 111110111111 101110110101 101010111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,051 |
Words | 521 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 8, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12 |
Lines Amount | 75 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 309 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 74 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 2:40 min read
- 178 Views
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"The Flowers" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33434/the-flowers>.
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