Analysis of Happy Heathen: (With limited apologies to G.K.C.)
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)
The heathen's not efficient;
He sits down in the sun
And doesn't care a tuppn'y dump
When the day's work's begun.
He works to eat and eats to live,
All day he'll dance and sing;
And if you mention overtime
He laughs like anything.
But we are most efficient!
And, goodness! Look at us!
Our nights are filled with restless dreams,
Our days with fret and fuss.
And we can have depressions
And modern things like that,
And monoplanes and motor cars
And trousers and a hat.
The heathen's not efficient;
He does not value gold;
And when we'd teach him of its worth
He simply won't be told.
He'll hang gold coins about his neck
For foolish ornament,
While half a bread-fruit or a ham
Bring him complete content.
Oh, we are most efficient;
We'd pile up heaps of gold
And leave it to ungrateful heirs
When we descend to mould.
But the heathen's not efficient;
He is lazy, free, unkempt,
And from the highly civilized
Earns nothing but contempt.
Scheme | Abxbxcxc adxdxexe Afxfxaxx afxfagxg |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011010 111001 0101011 101101 11110111 111101 0111010 11110 1111010 010111 101111101 1011101 0111010 010111 0100101 010001 011010 111101 01111111 110111 11110111 110100 11011101 110110 1111010 111111 01110101 110111 1011010 1110101 0101010 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 912 |
Words | 173 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 98 Views
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"Happy Heathen: (With limited apologies to G.K.C.)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6360/happy-heathen%3A-%28with-limited-apologies-to-g.k.c.%29>.
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