Analysis of The Ah Goo Tongue
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
The queerest languages known to man,
Sanscrit, Hebrew, Hindoostan,
Are all translated and made as free
And comprehensive as A B C.
Yet the oldest language talked or sung,
The strange mysterious Ah Goo tongue,
The royal language of Babyland
No man living can understand.
Every soul in the world to-day
Was one time anchored in Babyland Bay,
And quarantined there for a year or more
Before he even could step on shore.
And everybody in Babyland Bay
Talks the Ah Goo tongue, so people say,
But once on land-why not a word
Do they understand of it when 'tis heard.
For the fairy rulers of Babyland
Who guard the kingdom on every hand,
Have willed that no one shall keep the key
Who crosses into the Grown-up Sea.
So the sweet court language has never been made
A common parlance of strife or trade,
But is kept in the kingdom where natives come
Versed in the language of Babydom.
They are all of them royal and that is how
The Grown-up people all kneel and bow,
When they hear that language talked or sung-
The strange mysterious Ah Goo tongue.
Scheme | aabb cCdd deff eedd ddbb ddgg hhcC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 01100111 1101 110100111 00101011 101010111 010100111 0101011 1110101 100100111 11110011 010110111 011101111 0100011 101111101 11111101 110111111 10101011 1101011001 111111101 110010111 10111011011 010101111 11100101101 1001011 11111100111 011101101 111110111 010100111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,021 |
Words | 193 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 118 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 112 Views
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