Analysis of The Little Orphan
Edgar Albert Guest 1881 (Birmingham) – 1959 (Detroit, Michigan)
The crowded street his playground is, a patch of blue his sky;
A puddle in a vacant lot his sea where ships pass by:
Poor little orphan boy of five, the city smoke and grime
Taint every cooling breeze he gets throughout the summer time;
And he is just as your boy is, a child who loves to play,
Except that he is drawn and white and cannot get away.
And he would like the open fields, for often in his dreams
The angels kind bear him off to where are pleasant streams,
Where he may sail a splendid boat, sometimes he flies a kite,
Or romps beside a shepherd dog and shouts with all his might;
But when the dawn of morning comes he wakes to find once more
That what he thought were sun-kissed hills are rags upon the floor.
Then through the hot and sultry day he plays at "make-pretend,"
The alley is a sandy beach where all the rich folks send
Their little boys and girls to play, a barrel is his boat,
But, oh, the air is tifling and the dust fills up his throat;
And though he tries so very hard to play, somehow it seems
He never gets such wondrous joys as angels bring in dreams.
Poor little orphan boy of five, except that he is pale,
With sunken cheeks and hollow eyes and very wan and frail,
Just like that little boy of yours, with same desire to play,
Fond of the open fields and skies, he's built the self-same way;
But kept by fate and circumstance away from shady streams,
His only joy comes when he sleeps and angels bring him dreams.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFF GGHHDD IICCDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101111011111 01000101111111 11010111010101 110010111010101 01111111011111 01111101010101 01110101110011 0101111111101 11110101011101 11010101011111 11011101111111 11110111110101 11010101111101 01010101110111 11010111010111 1101110011111 0111110111111 11011101110101 11010111011111 11010101010101 111101111101011 11010101110111 1111010011101 11011111010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,487 |
Words | 284 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 47 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 377 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 94 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:25 min read
- 104 Views
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"The Little Orphan" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8416/the-little-orphan>.
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