Analysis of Bert Kessler
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
I winged my bird,
Though he flew toward the setting sun;
But just as the shot rang out, he soared
Up and up through the splinters of golden light,
Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled,
With some of the down of him floating near,
And fell like a plummet into the grass.
I tramped about, parting the tangles,
Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump,
And the quail lying close to the rotton roots.
I reached my hand, but saw no brier,
But something pricked and stung and numbed it.
And then, in a second, I spied the rattler--
The shutters wide in his yellow eyes,
The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him,
A circle of filth, the color of ashes,
Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves.
I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled
And started to crawl beneath the stump,
When I fell limp in the grass.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLKMNOPQIG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111 111010101 111011111 1011011101 1111101010 1110111101 0110100101 110110010 1110111101 0011011011 111111110 110101011 010010110100 010101101 011111100111 01011010110 1111101011 1110111101 010110101 1111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 835 |
Words | 164 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 20 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 639 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 162 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 86 Views
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