Analysis of The Ghosts' High Noon



When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls, and the bat in the
moonlight flies,
And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds, sail over the midnight skies -
When the footpads quail at the night-bird's wail, and black dogs
bay the moon,
Then is the spectres' holiday - then is the ghosts' high noon!

As the sob of the breeze sweeps over the trees, and the mists lie
low on the fen,
From grey tombstones are gathered the bones that once were women
and men,
And away they go, with a mop and a mow, to the revel that ends too
soon,
For cockcrow limits our holiday - the dead of the night's high
noon!

And then each ghost with his ladye-toast to their churchyard beds
take flight,
With a kiss, perhaps, on her lantern chaps, and a grisly grim "good
night";
Till the welcome knell of the midnight bell rings forth its
jolliest tune,
And ushers our next high holiday - the dead of the night's high
noon!


Scheme xaaxbb cdxdxbcB xexexbcB
Poetic Form
Metre 101110010100100 11 010111001110011 101110111011 101 110110110111 101101110010011 1101 1111100111010 01 001111010011010111 1 11101010011011 1 011111111111 11 1010110101001011 1 101011011111 1001 010101110011011 1
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 880
Words 171
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 8, 8
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 230
Words per stanza (avg) 56
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

52 sec read
60

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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