Analysis of What the People Said
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
By the well, where the bullocks go
Silent and blind and slow --
By the field where the young corn dies
In the face of the sultry skies,
They have heard, as the dull Earth hears
The voice of the wind of an hour,
The sound of the Great Queen's voice:
"My God hath given me years,
Hath granted dominion and power:
And I bid you, O Land, rejoice."
And the ploughman settles the share
More deep in the grudging clod;
For he saith: "The wheat is my care,
And the rest is the will of God.
He sent the Mahratta spear
As He sendeth the rain,
And the Mlech, in the fated year,
Broke the spear in twain.
And was broken in turn. Who knows
How our Lords make strife?
It is good that the young wheat grows,
For the bread is Life."
Then, far and near, as the twilight drew,
Hissed up to the scornful dark
Great serpents, blazing, of red and blue,
That rose and faded, and rose anew.
That the Land might wonder and mark
"To-day is a day of days," they said,
"Make merry, O People, all!"
And the Ploughman listened and bowed his head:
"To-day and to-morrow God's will," he said,
As he trimmed the lamps on the wall.
"He sendeth us years that are good,
As He sendeth the dearth,
He giveth to each man his food,
Or Her food to the Earth.
Our Kings and our Queens are afar --
On their peoples be peace --
God bringeth the rain to the Bar,
That our cattle increase."
And the Ploughman settled the share
More deep in the sun-dried clod:
"Mogul Mahratta, and Mlech from the North,
And White Queen over the Seas --
God raiseth them up and driveth them forth
As the dust of the ploughshare flies in the breeze;
But the wheat and the cattle are all my care,
And the rest is the will of God."
Scheme | aabbxcdxcd efeFghghijij klkklfmffm fnfnopop efqrqreF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110101 100101 10110111 00110101 11110111 011011110 0110111 1111011 110010010 01111101 0011001 1100101 11101111 00110111 11011 11101 00100101 10101 01100111 110111 11110111 10111 11011011 1110101 110101101 110100101 10111001 111011111 1101101 001100111 1101101111 11101101 1111111 11101 11011111 101101 1010101101 111011 1101101 1101001 0011001 1100111 10101101 0111001 11110111 10110101001 10100101111 00110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,630 |
Words | 336 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 12, 10, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 252 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 65 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:39 min read
- 140 Views
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"What the People Said" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33641/what-the-people-said>.
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