Analysis of The Reward of Merit
William Schwenck Gilbert 1836 – 1911
DR. BELVILLE was regarded as the CRICHTON of his age:
His tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage;
His poems held a noble rank, although it's very true
That, being very proper, they were read by very few.
He was a famous Painter, too, and shone upon the "line,"
And even MR. RUSKIN came and worshipped at his shrine;
But, alas, the school he followed was heroically high -
The kind of Art men rave about, but very seldom buy;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
He was a great Inventor, and discovered, all alone,
A plan for making everybody's fortune but his own;
For, in business, an Inventor's little better than a fool,
And my highly-gifted friend was no exception to the rule.
His poems - people read them in the Quarterly Reviews -
His pictures - they engraved them in the ILLUSTRATED NEWS -
His inventions - they, perhaps, might have enriched him by degrees,
But all his little income went in Patent Office fees;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
At last the point was given up in absolute despair,
When a distant cousin died, and he became a millionaire,
With a county seat in Parliament, a moor or two of grouse,
And a taste for making inconvenient speeches in the House!
THEN it flashed upon Britannia that the fittest of rewards
Was, to take him from the Commons and to put him in the Lords!
And who so fit to sit in it, deny it if you can,
As this very great - this very good - this very gifted man?
(Though I'm more than half afraid
That it sometimes may be said
That we never should have revelled in that source of proper pride,
However great his merits - if his cousin hadn't died!)
Scheme | aabbccddEFGG hhiijjkkEFGG llmmnnggfeoo |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110101010111 11000101110101 1101010111101 11010101011101 11010101010101 01010101010111 1010111011001 01111101110101 01001 111101 11011101110101 111101010001 11010100010101 0111010010111 1010111010101 011010111010101 11010110010001 1101011001001 101010111011101 1111011010101 01001 111101 11011101110101 111101010001 1101110101001 10101010101001 101010100011111 00111001010001 1110101001010101 111110100111001 01111101011111 111011101110101 1111101 1101111 11101110111101 1011101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,812 |
Words | 353 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 12, 12 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 473 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 116 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 15, 2023
- 1:46 min read
- 75 Views
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