Analysis of If By Chance Your Eye Offend You
Alfred Edward Housman 1859 – 1936
If by chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.
And if your hand or foot offend you,
Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
When your sickness is your soul.
| Scheme | ABAB ACAC |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | Quatrain |
| Metre | 11111011 1111011 111111111 010010111 011111011 1111011 110111011 1110111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 298 |
| Words | 62 |
| Sentences | 3 |
| Stanzas | 2 |
| Stanza Lengths | 4, 4 |
| Lines Amount | 8 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
| Words per line (avg) | 8 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 108 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 18 sec read
- 93 Views
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"If By Chance Your Eye Offend You" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/884/if-by-chance-your-eye-offend-you>.
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