Analysis of Only Roses



To a garden full of posies
Cometh one to gather flowers;
And he wanders through its bowers
Toying with the wanton roses,
Who, uprising from their beds,
Hold on high their shameless heads
With their pretty lips a-pouting,
Never doubting - never doubting
That for Cytherean posies
He would gather aught but roses.

In a nest of weeds and nettles,
Lay a violet, half hidden;
Hoping that his glance unbidden
Yet might fall upon her petals.
Though she lived alone, apart,
Hope lay nestling at her heart,
But, alas! the cruel awaking
Set her little heart a-breaking,
For he gathered for his posies
Only roses - only roses!


Scheme AAAAAABBAA ACCADDBBAA
Poetic Form Etheree  (40%)
Metre 1010111 10111010 01101110 10101010 1010111 1111101 11101010 10101010 1111 11101110 00111010 10100110 101111 11101010 1110101 1110101 1010101 10101010 1110111 10101010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 604
Words 110
Sentences 5
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 10, 10
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 244
Words per stanza (avg) 54
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 08, 2023

33 sec read
101

William Schwenck Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist librettist poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan of which the most famous include HMS Pinafore The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre The Mikado These as well as most of their other Savoy operas continue to be performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies repertory companies schools and community theatre groups Lines from these works have become part of the English language such as short sharp shock What never Well hardly ever and Let the punishment fit the crime Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads an extensive collection of light verse accompanied by his own comical drawings His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti numerous stories poems lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Gilberts lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since Source - Wikipedia more…

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