Analysis of The Scamps
Of home, name and wealth and ambition bereft—
We are children of fortune and luck:
They deny there’s a shred of our characters left,
But they cannot deny us the pluck!
We are vagabond scamps, we are kings over all—
There is little on earth we desire—
We are devils who stand with our backs to the wall,
And who call on the cowards to fire!
There are some of us here who were noble and good,
And who learnt in ingratitude’s schools—
They were born of the selfish and misunderstood,
They were soft, they were ‘smoodgers’ or fools.
With their hands in their pockets to help every friend
In a fix—and they never asked how:
Beware of them you who have money to lend,
For it’s little you’d get from them now.
There are some of us here who were lovers of old—
In the days that were nearer to God;
The girl was more precious than honour or gold,
And they worshipped the ground where she trod;
But she trampled their hearts and they suffered and knew
How the soul of a woman to read—
They will never again to a woman be true;
Let the girls who may meet them take heed!
There are some of us here who were devils from birth,
Who would steal the eye out of a friend—
But we judge not or blame not the worst on the earth,
For it comes to the same in the end.
There are some of us here who were ruined by wrong—
To whom justice and love came too late—
And they threw them aside and go singing a song,
And they know that their mistress is fate.
We were some of us failures at suicide, too—
We are most of us back from the dead—
But we’ve all found the courage to battle it through,
Till the strength of our bodies is sped:
With a flag that is dyed with our hearts’-blood unfurled,
We are marching and marching afar—
We are comrades of all who are fighting the world,
For the world made us all what we are.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJKLKX MGMGNONO KLKLPQPQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101001001 111011001 1011011101001 111001101 111001111101 1110111010 1110111101101 0111010110 111111101001 011011 10110100001 10110111 1110110111001 001011011 01111111011 111011111 111111101011 001101011 0111101111 011001111 111011011001 101101011 111001101011 101111111 111111101011 111011101 111111101101 111101001 111111101011 111001111 011101011001 011111011 10111101101 111111101 111101011011 1011101011 1011111101101 111001001 11111111001 101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,805 |
Words | 356 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 277 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 71 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:46 min read
- 54 Views
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"The Scamps" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18081/the-scamps>.
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