Analysis of New Guinea
I SAW them as they were born,
Erect and fearless and free,
Facing the sun and the wind
Of the hills and the sea.
I saw them naked, superb,
Like the Greeks long ago,
With shield and spear and arrow
Ready to strike and throw.
I saw them as they were made
By the Christianizing crows,
Blinking, stupid, clumsy,
In their greasy ill-cut clothes:
I heard their gibbering cant,
And they sung those hymns that smell
Of poor souls besotted, degraded
With the fear of 'God' and 'Hell.'
And I thought if Jesus could see them,
He who loved the freedom, the light,
And loathed those who compassed heaven
And earth for one proselyte,
To make him, etcetera, etcetera, —
Then this sight, as on me or you,
Would act on him like an emetic,
And he'd have to go off and spue.
O Jesus, O man of the People,
Who died to abolish all this —
The Pharisee rank and respectable,
The Scribe and the scabrous Priest —
O Jesus, O sacred Socialist,
You would die again of shame,
If you were alive and could see
What things are done in your Name.
Scheme | ABCBDEEEFGBHIJKJLMNCOPQRSTSUVWBW |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111101 0101001 1001001 101001 1111001 101101 1101010 101101 1111101 1011 101010 0110111 11111 0111111 1111010 1011101 011110111 11101001 0111110 01111 11111001100 11111111 111111010 01111101 110111010 11101011 01100100 010011 110110100 1110111 11001011 1111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 997 |
Words | 197 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 32 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 779 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 194 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 94 Views
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"New Guinea" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/14038/new-guinea>.
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