Analysis of The impact of a dollar upon the heart

Stephen Crane 1871 – 1900



The impact of a dollar upon the heart
Smiles warm red light,
Sweeping from the hearth rosily upon the white table,
With the hanging cool velvet shadows
Moving softly upon the door.

The impact of a million dollars
Is a crash of flunkeys,
And yawning emblems of Persia
Cheeked against oak, France and a sabre,
The outcry of old beauty
Whored by pimping merchants
To submission before wine and chatter.
Silly rich peasants stamp the carpets of men,
Dead men who dreamed fragrance and light
Into their woof, their lives;
The rug of an honest bear
Under the feet of a cryptic slave
Who speaks always of baubles,
Forgetting state, multitude, work, and state,
Champing and mouthing of hats,
Making ratful squeak of hats,
Hats.


Scheme XAXBX XBXCXXCXAXXXXXDDD
Poetic Form
Metre 00110100101 1111 101011010110 10101101 10100101 001101010 10111 01010110 101110010 011110 111010 1010011010 10110101011 11111001 011111 0111101 100110101 111110 010110101 101011 101111 1
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 727
Words 127
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 5, 17
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 289
Words per stanza (avg) 63
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
97

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was an American politician from Elizabethtown who was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776. more…

All Stephen Crane poems | Stephen Crane Books

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    AA Milne wrote: "A bear, however hard he tries..."
    A "grows tubby with no exercise"
    B "can never stop telling lies"
    C "has very very tired eyes"
    D "stinks and attracts the flies"