Analysis of To the Unknown Warrior
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
You whom the kings saluted; who refused not
The one great pleasure of ignoble days,
Fame without name and glory without gossip,
Whom no biographer befouls with praise.
Who said of you "Defeated"? In the darkness
The dug-out where the limelight never comes,
Nor the big drum of Barnum's show can shatter
That vibrant stillness after all the drums.
Though the time comes when every Yankee circus
Can use our soldiers for its sandwich-men,
When those that pay the piper call the tune,
You will not dance. You will not move again.
You will not march for Fatty Arbuckle,
Though he have yet a favourable press,
Tender as San Francisco to St. Francis
Or all the angels of Los Angeles.
They shall not storm the last unfallen fortress,
The lonely castle where uncowed and free,
Dwells the unknown and undefeated warrior
That did alone defeat Publicity.
Scheme | XAXA BCDC BEXE XXBX BFDF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (80%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11010101011 0111010101 10110100110 110100111 11110100010 011101101 1011111110 1101010101 101111001010 11101011101 1111010101 1111111101 1111110100 1111011 10110101110 1101011100 111101110 010101101 10010010100 1101010100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 832 |
Words | 148 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 135 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 149 Views
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