Analysis of Staff Nurse:Old Style

William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)



The greater masters of the commonplace,
REMBRANDT and good SIR WALTER-only these
Could paint her all to you: experienced ease
And antique liveliness and ponderous grace;
The sweet old roses of her sunken face;
The depth and malice of her sly, grey eyes;
The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies;
The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace.
These thirty years has she been nursing here,
Some of them under SYME , her hero still.
Much is she worth, and even more is made of her.
Patients and students hold her very dear.
The doctors love her, tease her, use her skill.
They say 'The Chief' himself is half-afraid of her.


Scheme ABBAACCADEFGEF
Poetic Form
Metre 010101010 101110101 11011101001 00110001001 0111010101 0101010111 011111101 0111111101 1101111101 1111010101 111101011110 1001010101 0101010101 110101110110
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 629
Words 115
Sentences 7
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 497
Words per stanza (avg) 114
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
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William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". more…

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