Analysis of The Idealist
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Oh you who have daring deeds to tell!
And you who have felt Ambition's spell!
Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell
In the golden hair of a queen?
He sighed all day and he sighed all night,
And no one could understand it quite,
For the head of a slut is a louse's delight,
But he pined for the head of a queen.
So he left his kinsfolk in merry play,
And off by his lonesome he stole away,
From the home of his youth so bright and gay,
And gloriously unclean.
And at last he came to the palace gate,
And he made his way in a manner straight
(For a louse may go where a man must wait)
To the tiring-room of the queen.
The queen she spake to her tiring-maid:
"There's something the matter, I'm afraid.
To-night ere for sleep my hair ye braid,
Just see what may be seen."
And lo, when they combed that shining hair
They found him alone in his glory there,
And he cried: "I die, but I do not care,
For I've lived in the head of a queen!"
Scheme | AAABCCCB DDDBEEEB FFFBGGGB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111110111 0111111 1111011111 00101101 111101111 01110111 10110110101 111101101 111110101 0111101101 1011111101 0100001 0111110101 0111100101 1011110111 10101101 011110101 110010101 111111111 111111 011111101 1110101101 0111111111 111001101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 987 |
Words | 196 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 238 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 80 Views
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