Analysis of Haunted
Haunted? Ay, in a social way
By a body of ghosts in dread array;
But no conventional spectres they -
Appalling, grim, and tricky:
I quail at mine as I'd never quail
At a fine traditional spectre pale,
With a turnip head and a ghostly wail,
And a splash of blood on the dickey!
Mine are horrible, social ghosts, -
Speeches and women and guests and hosts,
Weddings and morning calls and toasts,
In every bad variety:
Ghosts who hover about the grave
Of all that's manly, free, and brave:
You'll find their names on the architrave
Of that charnel-house, Society.
Black Monday - black as its school-room ink -
With its dismal boys that snivel and think
Of its nauseous messes to eat and drink,
And its frozen tank to wash in.
That was the first that brought me grief,
And made me weep, till I sought relief
In an emblematical handkerchief,
To choke such baby bosh in.
First and worst in the grim array-
Ghosts of ghosts that have gone their way,
Which I wouldn't revive for a single day
For all the wealth of PLUTUS -
Are the horrible ghosts that school-days scared:
If the classical ghost that BRUTUS dared
Was the ghost of his "Caesar" unprepared,
I'm sure I pity BRUTUS.
I pass to critical seventeen;
The ghost of that terrible wedding scene,
When an elderly Colonel stole my Queen,
And woke my dream of heaven.
No schoolgirl decked in her nurse-room curls
Was my gushing innocent Queen of Pearls;
If she wasn't a girl of a thousand girls,
She was one of forty-seven!
I see the ghost of my first cigar,
Of the thence-arising family jar -
Of my maiden brief (I was at the Bar,
And I called the Judge "Your wushup!")
Of reckless days and reckless nights,
With wrenched-off knockers, extinguished lights,
Unholy songs and tipsy fights,
Which I strove in vain to hush up.
Ghosts of fraudulent joint-stock banks,
Ghosts of "copy, declined with thanks,"
Of novels returned in endless ranks,
And thousands more, I suffer.
The only line to fitly grace
My humble tomb, when I've run my race,
Is, "Reader, this is the resting-place
Of an unsuccessful duffer."
I've fought them all, these ghosts of mine,
But the weapons I've used are sighs and brine,
And now that I'm nearly forty-nine,
Old age is my chiefest bogy;
For my hair is thinning away at the crown,
And the silver fights with the worn-out brown;
And a general verdict sets me down
As an irreclaimable fogy.
Scheme | AAABCCCB DDDBEEEB FFFGHHXG AAADIIIX JJJKLLLK MMMNOOON PPPQRRRQ SSSXTTTB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10100101 1010110101 11010011 0101010 111111101 1010100101 1010100101 001111010 11100101 100100101 10010101 010010100 11100101 11110101 11111010 11110100 110111111 111011101 1110101101 01101110 11011111 011111101 011100 1111010 10100101 11111111 11100110101 110111 1010011111 1010011101 101111001 1111010 111100101 0111100101 1110010111 0111110 11100111 1110100111 11100110101 11111010 110111101 1010101001 1110111101 0110111 11010101 11110101 01010101 11101111 11100111 11100111 110010101 0101110 0101111 110111111 110110101 1101010 11111111 1010111101 011110101 111111 11111001101 0010110111 0010010111 11110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,301 |
Words | 430 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 229 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:11 min read
- 92 Views
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"Haunted" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41230/haunted>.
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