Analysis of The Censor
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)
The Censor sits behind his desk,
And smiles a censored smile;
His great, blue pencil hovers o'er
Some masterpiece awhile,
Then swoops - oh, child of whose poor ravished brain?
Coldly another innnocent is slain!
The Censor is a murderer.
None knows his secret lair,
Nor all the dark and awful deeds
He does in ambush there.
No eye has seen his charnel-house - it's floor
With literary corpses littered o'er.
The Censor is a crocodile.
Beneath that slimy flood,
The Waters of Oblivion,
He seeks his livelihood.
His gloating eye marks children of my pen;
He draws them under from the sight of men.
The Censor is a nibbling mouse.
The fair cheese of my mind
He rifles till there's nothing left
But atmosphere and rind.
That fair, round cheese, formed lovingly by me,
From milk of thought and curds of poesy.
The Censor is an elephant.
With large, ungainly feet
He dances on the glad, green fields
I sowed in toil and heat,
Till all the fairest flow'rs of thought are slain,
And only unaesthetic weeds remain.
The Censor is the Fiend of Storms.
Upon the Inky Sea,
In fear, my poor, frail craft I launch;
Then, with unholy glee,
He makes the winds tear howling through the shrouds,
And sends fork'd death and shipwreck from the clouds.
The Censor is a sorceror.
Above rare fruits that grow
Upon the tree of genius
His hand waves to and fro.
Hey, Presto! And their lusciousness is slain -
Apples of Sodom, Dead Sea Fruit remain.
The Censor is a hooded snake
That lurks within the grass,
And rears to sink his poison-fangs
In heedless babes that pass
Dear Children of my brain; wee, tender things,
That sink and swoon and perish when he stings.
And still he is a gentleman;
This much I will admit.
In 'Correspondence Columns' he
Seeks not to air his wit;
On shrinking backs he lays no caustic stripe,
Nor stoops to call our Masterpieces 'tripe'!
Scheme | XABACCBDEDXB AXFXGG XHXHIE XJXJCC XIXIKKBLXLCC XMXMNNFOIOPP |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010111 010101 111101010 11001 111111111 10010111 01010100 111101 11010101 11011 111111111 1100101010 0101010 011101 01010100 11110 1101110111 1111010111 010101001 011111 11011101 11001 1111110011 11110111 01011100 110101 11010111 110101 1101011111 0101101 01010111 010101 01111111 110101 1101110101 0111010101 010101 011111 0101110 111101 1101111 1011011101 01010101 110101 01111101 01111 1101111101 1101010111 01110100 111101 0010101 111111 1101111101 1111101001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,799 |
Words | 333 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 6, 6, 12, 12 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 240 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 55 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:41 min read
- 114 Views
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"The Censor" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6599/the-censor>.
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