Analysis of Alf’s Fifth Bit
Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)
The pomps of butchery, financial power,
Told 'em to die in war, and then to save,
Then cut their saving to the half or lower;
When will this system lie down in its grave?
The pomps of Fleet St., festering year on year,
Hid truth and lied, and lied and hid the facts.
The pimps of Whitehall ever more in fear,
Hid health statistics, dodged the Labour Acts.
All drew their pay, and as the pay grew less,
The money rotten and more rotten yet,
Hid more statistics, more feared to confess
C.3, C.4, 'twere better to forget
How many weak of mind, how much tuberculosis
Filled the back alleys and the back to back houses.
'The medical report this week discloses . . .'
'Time for that question!' Front Bench interposes.
Time for that question? and the time is NOW.
Who ate the profits, and who locked 'em in
The unsafe safe, wherein all rots, and no man can say how
What was the nation's, now by Norman's kin
Is one day blown up large, the next, ducked in?
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF XXXD GHGHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110001010 1111010111 11110101110 1111011011 01111100111 1101010101 011110101 110101011 1111010111 0101001101 1101011101 11110101 110111110010 101100011110 01000111010 11110111 1111000111 1101001110 00110111011111 1101011101 1111110110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 936 |
Words | 183 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 5 |
Lines Amount | 21 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 144 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 25, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 158 Views
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"Alf’s Fifth Bit" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13179/alf%E2%80%99s-fifth-bit>.
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