Analysis of And If I Did, What Then?
George Gascoigne 1535 (Cardington) – 1577
1 'And if I did, what then?
2 Are you aggriev'd therefore?
3 The sea hath fish for every man,
4 And what would you have more?'
5 Thus did my mistress once,
6 Amaze my mind with doubt;
7 And popp'd a question for the nonce
8 To beat my brains about.
9 Whereto I thus replied:
10 'Each fisherman can wish
11 That all the seas at every tide
12 Were his alone to fish.
13 'And so did I (in vain)
14 But since it may not be,
15 Let such fish there as find the gain,
16 And leave the loss for me.
17 'And with such luck and loss
18 I will content myself,
19 Till tides of turning time may toss
20 Such fishers on the shelf.
21 'And when they stick on sands,
22 That every man may see,
23 Then will I laugh and clap my hands,
24 As they do now at me.'
Scheme | XAXA XBXB CDCD EFEF GHGH IFIF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 011111 11011 011111001 011111 111101 011111 01010101 111101 11101 11011 110111001 010111 011101 111111 11111101 010111 011101 11101 11110111 110101 011111 1100111 11110111 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 807 |
Words | 166 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 92 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 63 Views
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"And If I Did, What Then?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15005/and-if-i-did%2C-what-then%3F>.
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