Analysis of Skin
Philip Larkin 1922 (Coventry) – 1985 (Hull)
Obedient daily dress,
You cannot always keep
That unfakable young surface.
You must learn your lines -
Anger, amusement, sleep;
Those few forbidding signs
Of the continuous coarse
Sand-laden wind, time;
You must thicken, work loose
Into an old bag
Carrying a soiled name.
Parch then; be roughened; sag;
And pardon me, that
I Could find, when you were new,
No brash festivity
To wear you at, such as
Clothes are entitled to
Till the fashion changes
Scheme | XAXBAB XXXCXC XDXXDX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0100101 11011 11110 11111 100101 110101 1001001 11011 111011 01111 100011 11111 01011 1111101 110100 111111 110101 101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 430 |
Words | 77 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 118 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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"Skin" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/58738/skin>.
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