Analysis of Borrowed Brains
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
Writer folk across the bay
Take the pains to see and say
All their upward palms in air:
'Joaquin Miller's cut his hair!'
Hasten, hasten, writer folk
In the gutters rake and poke,
If by God's exceeding grace
You may hit upon the place
Where the barber threw at length
Samson's literary strength.
Find it, find it if you can;
Happy the successful man!
He has but to put one strand
In his beaver's inner band
And his intellect will soar
As it never did before!
While an inch of it remains
He will noted be for brains,
And at last ('twill so befall)
Fit to cease to write at all.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) |
Metre | 1010101 1011101 1110101 110111 1010101 0010101 1110101 1110101 1010111 11001 1111111 1000101 1111111 011101 011011 1110101 1111101 1110111 0111101 1111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 564 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 20 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 444 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 111 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 80 Views
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"Borrowed Brains" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1730/borrowed-brains>.
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