Analysis of One From One Leaves Two
Ogden Nash 1902 (Rye, New York) – 1971 (Baltimore)
Higgledy piggledy, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Gentlemen come every day
To count what my black hen doth lay.
If perchance she lays too many,
They fine my hen a pretty penny;
If perchance she fails to lay,
The gentlemen a bonus pay.
Mumbledy pumbledy, my red cow,
She’s cooperating now.
At first she didn’t understand
That milk production must be planned;
She didn’t understand at first
She either had to plan or burst,
But now the government reports
She’s giving pints instead of quarts.
Fiddle de dee, my next-door neighbors,
They are giggling at their labors.
First they plant the tiny seed,
Then they water, then they weed,
Then they hoe and prune and lop,
They they raise a record crop,
Then they laugh their sides asunder,
And plow the whole caboodle under.
Abracadabra, thus we learn
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you’re given,
The less you lead, the more you’re driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need,
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take
If the tax-collector hasn’t got it before I wake.
Scheme | XXAABBAA CCDDEEFF GGHHIIJJ KKLLHHMMNN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111 1111100 10011001 11111111 10111110 111101010 1011111 01000101 11111 101001 111101 11010111 110111 11011111 11010001 11010111 101111110 111001110 1110101 1110111 1110101 1110011 11111010 010101010 0010111 011010111 011101110 011101110 01010111 01110111 01110111 01111111 11011111 1010101110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,176 |
Words | 243 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 10 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 225 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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"One From One Leaves Two" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/155565/one-from-one-leaves-two>.
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