Analysis of At a Pantomime. By a Bilious One
An Actor sits in doubtful gloom,
His stock-in-trade unfurled,
In a damp funereal dressing-room
In the Theatre Royal, World.
He comes to town at Christmas-time,
And braves its icy breath,
To play in that favourite pantomime,
HARLEQUIN LIFE AND DEATH.
A hoary flowing wig his weird
Unearthly cranium caps,
He hangs a long benevolent beard
On a pair of empty chaps.
To smooth his ghastly features down
The actor's art he cribs, -
A long and a flowing padded gown.
Bedecks his rattling ribs.
He cries, "Go on - begin, begin!
Turn on the light of lime -
I'm dressed for jolly Old Christmas, in
A favourite pantomime!"
The curtain's up - the stage all black -
Time and the year nigh sped -
Time as an advertising quack -
The Old Year nearly dead.
The wand of Time is waved, and lo!
Revealed Old Christmas stands,
And little children chuckle and crow,
And laugh and clap their hands.
The cruel old scoundrel brightens up
At the death of the Olden Year,
And he waves a gorgeous golden cup,
And bids the world good cheer.
The little ones hail the festive King, -
No thought can make them sad.
Their laughter comes with a sounding ring,
They clap and crow like mad!
They only see in the humbug old
A holiday every year,
And handsome gifts, and joys untold,
And unaccustomed cheer.
The old ones, palsied, blear, and hoar,
Their breasts in anguish beat -
They've seen him seventy times before,
How well they know the cheat!
They've seen that ghastly pantomime,
They've felt its blighting breath,
They know that rollicking Christmas-time
Meant Cold and Want and Death, -
Starvation - Poor Law Union fare -
And deadly cramps and chills,
And illness - illness everywhere,
And crime, and Christmas bills.
They know Old Christmas well, I ween,
Those men of ripened age;
They've often, often, often seen
That Actor off the stage!
They see in his gay rotundity
A clumsy stuffed-out dress -
They see in the cup he waves on high
A tinselled emptiness.
Those aged men so lean and wan,
They've seen it all before,
They know they'll see the charlatan
But twice or three times more.
And so they bear with dance and song,
And crimson foil and green,
They wearily sit, and grimly long
For the Transformation Scene.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH ICIC JKJK LMLM NONO PQPQ RORO STST CDCD UVUV GWXW BXXX XSXS YXYX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (94%) |
Metre | 11010101 110101 0011101 00100101 11111101 011101 1101110 100101 01010111 0101001 110101001 1011101 11110101 010111 010010101 11101 11110101 110111 111101100 0110 0110111 100111 1111001 011101 01111101 011101 010101001 010111 010110101 10110101 011010101 010111 010110101 111111 110110101 110111 11010011 0101001 01010101 00101 0111101 110101 111100101 111101 1111010 11111 111100101 110101 01011101 010101 0101010 010101 11110111 111101 11010101 110101 110111 010111 110011111 01100 1111101 111101 11110100 111111 01111101 010101 110010101 100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,128 |
Words | 396 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 17 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 68 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 100 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 74 Views
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"At a Pantomime. By a Bilious One" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41208/at-a-pantomime.-by-a-bilious-one>.
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