Analysis of The Better Part

Edith Nesbit 1858 (Kennington, Surrey ) – 1924 (New Romney, Kent)



THERE'S a grey old church on a wind-swept hill
Where three bent yew trees cower,
The gipsy roses grow there still,
And the thyme and Saint John's gold flower,
The pale blue violets that love the chalk
Cling light round the lichened stone,
And starlings chatter and grey owls talk
In the belfry o' nights alone.

It's a thousand leagues and a thousand years
From the brick-built, gas-lit town
To the little church where the wild thyme hears
The bees and the breeze of the down.
The town is crowded and hard and rough;
Let those fight in its press who will--
But the little churchyard is quiet enough,
And there's room in the churchyard still.


Scheme ABABXCXC XDXDEAEA
Poetic Form
Metre 1011110111 1111110 0110111 001011110 0111001101 111011 01100111 00101101 1010100101 1011111 1010110111 01001101 011100101 11101111 1010111001 0110011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 648
Words 118
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 253
Words per stanza (avg) 58
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
95

Edith Nesbit

Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 books of children's literature. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party. more…

All Edith Nesbit poems | Edith Nesbit Books

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