The Beginner
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
After He Has Been Extemporising On an Instrument Not Of His Own Invention -- Browning
Lo! What is this that I make -- sudden, supreme, unrehearsed --
This that my clutch in the crowd pressed at a venture has raised?
Forward and onward I sprang when I thought (as I ought) I reversed,
And a cab like martagon opes and I sit in the wreckage dazed.
And someone is taking my name, and the driver is rending the air
With cries for my blood and my gold, and a snickering news-boy brings
My cap, wheel-pashed from the kerb. I must run her home for repair,
Where she leers with her bonnet awry--flat on the nether springs!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 104 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | X ABAB CDCD |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 614 |
Words | 118 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4 |
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"The Beginner" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/33369/the-beginner>.
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