Analysis of Touchstone On A Bus

Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)



Last night I rode with Touchstone on a bus
From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he!
Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat,
I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly,
The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings,
The madcap morning star of elfin-land,
Who used to wrap his legs around his neck
For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back,
To see what men were doing in a world
That should be wiser. He had watched a play,
Read several books, heard men discourse of art
And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring
In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may,
Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride.
_Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!_
Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine,
He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes:--


Scheme ABCBDEFGHIJKILCMN
Poetic Form
Metre 111111101 111111111 010100101 11110110110 011110111 011011101 1111110111 1111011111 1111010001 1111011101 1101111011 01011100101 01010110111 101110111 1101110111 11010101010 110111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 760
Words 148
Sentences 9
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 17
Lines Amount 17
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 594
Words per stanza (avg) 144
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
102

Alfred Noyes

Alfred Noyes was an English poet best known for his ballads The Highwayman 1906 and The Barrel Organ more…

All Alfred Noyes poems | Alfred Noyes Books

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    A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using "like" or "as" is called a _______.
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