Analysis of The Post That Fitted
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
Though tangled and twisted the course of true love
This ditty explains,
No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve
If the Lover has brains.
Ere the seamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry
An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little Carrie."
Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way.
Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a day?
Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters --
Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin's daughters.
Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch,
But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make another match.
So they recognised the business and, to feed and clothe the bride,
Got him made a Something Something somewhere on the Bombay side.
Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marry --
As the artless Sleary put it: -- "Just the thing for me and Carrie."
Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin -- impulse of a baser mind?
No! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind.
[Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather: --
"Pears's shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather."]
Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite
Sleary with distressing vigour -- always in the Boffkins' sight.
Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring,
Told him his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.
Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy, --
Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ, --
Wired three short words to Carrie -- took his ticket, packed his kit --
Bade farewell to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.
Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read -- and laughed until she wept --
Mrs. Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept." . . .
Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits
Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.
Scheme | XAXA BBCC DDEE FFBB GGHH FXII JJKK XFLL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11001001111 11001 1111011001 101011 10111101101110 101011111111010 1111010110101 111011101110101 1110100100111010 10111011011110 1001111101 10111101010101 1110100110101 11101010110011 100101010111110 10111110111010 1111111010101 11100101110101 111001010111110 110111110101110 100010101010111 11010110011 1011101010111 111010101111100 1100101010101 01011100010001 101111101110111 11110101111001 11101011010111 101101010101 11101010101011 1010110101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,863 |
Words | 328 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 46 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 184 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 41 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 10, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 120 Views
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