Analysis of My Madonna
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And I painted her sitting there.
I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.
She laughed at my picture and went away.
Then came, with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say;
"'Tis Mary, the Mother of God."
So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,
Where you and all may see.
Scheme | ABAB XCXC DEDE BFBF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 111010101 101111 110100101 01100101 111110101 11001101 110011111 1011101 1111100101 1110101 00101111 11001011 1110010101 01100111 011001111 110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 578 |
Words | 118 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 104 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 147 Views
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"My Madonna" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32298/my-madonna>.
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