Analysis of Stretcher Case
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
He woke; the clank and racket of the train
Kept time with angry throbbings in his brain.
Then for a while he lapsed and drowsed again.
At last he lifted his bewildered eyes
And blinked, and rolled them sidelong; hills and skies,
Heavily wooded, hot with August haze,
And, slipping backward, golden for his gaze,
Acres of harvest.
Feebly now he drags
Exhausted ego back from glooms and quags
And blasting tumult, terror, hurtling glare,
To calm and brightness, havens of sweet air.
He sighed, confused; then drew a cautious breath;
This level journeying was no ride through death.
‘If I were dead,’ he mused, ‘there’d be no thinking—
Only some plunging underworld of sinking,
And hueless, shifting welter where I’d drown.’
Then he remembered that his name was Brown.
But was he back in Blighty? Slow he turned,
Till in his heart thanksgiving leapt and burned.
There shone the blue serene, the prosperous land,
Trees, cows and hedges; skipping these, he scanned
Large, friendly names, that change not with the year,
Lung Tonic, Mustard, Liver Pills and Beer.
Scheme | AAX BBCCX XBDDEEFFG G HHIIJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101010101 111101011 1101110101 1111010101 010111101 1001011101 0101010111 10110 10111 0101011101 0101010101 1101010111 1101110101 11010011111 11011111110 1011010110 011010111 1101011111 111101111 101110101 11010101001 1101010111 1101111101 1101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,074 |
Words | 183 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 5, 9, 1, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 166 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 28, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 79 Views
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"Stretcher Case" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34934/stretcher-case>.
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