Analysis of De Tea Fabula
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch 1863 (Bodmin, Cornwall) – 1944 (Cornwall)
Do I sleep? Do I dream?
Am I hoaxed by a scout?
Are things what they seem,
Or is Sophists about?
Is our 'to ti en einai' a failure, or is Robert Browning played
out?
Which expressions like these
May be fairly applied
By a party who sees
A Society skied
Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate
pride.
'Twas November the third,
And I says to Bill Nye,
'Which it's true what I've heard:
If you're, so to speak, fly,
There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort
recommended as High.'
Which I mentioned its name,
And he ups and remarks:
'If dress-coats is the game
And pow-wow in the Parks,
Then I 'm nuts on Sordello and Hohenstiel-Schwangau and similar
Snarks.'
Now the pride of Bill Nye
Cannot well be express'd;
For he wore a white tie
And a cut-away vest:
Says I, 'Solomon's lilies ain't in it, and they was reputed well
dress'd.'
But not far did we wend,
When we saw Pippa pass
On the arm of a friend
—Doctor Furnivall 'twas,
And he wore in his hat two half-tickets for London, return,
second-class.
'Well,' I thought, 'this is odd.'
But we came pretty quick
To a sort of a quad
That was all of red brick,
And I says to the porter,—'R. Browning: free passes; and kindly
look slick.'
But says he, dripping tears
In his check handkerchief,
'That symposium's career's
Been regrettably brief,
For it went all its pile upon crumpets and busted on
gunpowder-leaf!'
Then we tucked up the sleeves
Of our shirts (that were biled),
Which the reader perceives
That our feelings were riled,
And we went for that man till his mother had doubted the traits
of her child.
Which emotions like these
Must be freely indulged
By a party who sees
A Society bulged
On a reef the existence of which its prospectus had never
divulged.
But I ask,—Do I dream?
Has it gone up the spout?
Are things what they seem,
Or is Sophists about?
Is our 'to ti en einai' a failure, or is Robert Browning played
out?
Scheme | abABCBdeDfgehihijiklklmdininonpqprsqtutuvuwxdyzy1 b1 2 3 2 d4 D4 M4 ababcb |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111 111101 11111 11101 11011110101110101 1 101011 111001 101011 001001 0111010111110100 1 101001 011111 111111 111111 101111011001 01011 111011 011001 111101 011001 1111110110100 1 101111 101101 111011 001011 11100101010110101 1 111111 11111 101101 1011 011011111011001 101 111111 111101 101101 111111 0111010110110010 11 111101 011100 111 101001 1111110110101 101 111101 1101101 101001 1101001 011111111011001 101 101011 111001 101011 001001 1010010111010110 01 111111 111101 11111 11101 11011110101110101 1 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,915 |
Words | 368 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 66 |
Lines Amount | 66 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,458 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 357 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:51 min read
- 115 Views
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"De Tea Fabula" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35005/de-tea-fabula>.
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