Analysis of The Condemned
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
There is a wildness still in England that will not feed
In cages; it shrinks away from the touch of the trainer's hand,
Easy to kill, not easy to tame. It will never breed
In a zoo for the public pleasure. It will not be planned.
Do not blame us too much if we that are hedgerow folk
Cannot swell the rejoicings at this new world you make -
We, hedge-hogged as Johnson or Borrow, strange to the yoke
As Landor, surly as Cobbett (that badger), birdlike as Blake.
A new scent troubles the air -- to you, friendly perhaps
But we with animal wisdom have understood that smell.
To all our kind its message is Guns, Ferrets, and Traps,
And a Ministry gassing the little holes in which we dwell.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
Metre | 1101010101111 01011011011011 10111101111101 00110101011111 111111111111 10101111111 111110111101 11010110110111 0111001111001 1111001010111 11101110111001 001001001010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 691 |
Words | 133 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 12 |
Letters per line (avg) | 45 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 178 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 40 sec read
- 88 Views
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