Analysis of Stephen Dorsey

Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)



Fly, heedless stranger, from this spot accurst,
Where rests in Satan an offender first
In point of greatness, as in point of time,
Of new-school rascals who proclaim their crime.
Skilled with a frank loquacity to blab
The dark arcana of each mighty grab,
And famed for lying from his early youth,
He sinned secure behind a veil of truth.
Some lock their lips upon their deeds; some write
A damning record and conceal from sight;
Some, with a lust of speaking, die to quell it.
His way to keep a secret was to tell it.


Scheme AABBCCDDAAAA
Poetic Form
Metre 11101111 1101010101 0111010111 1111010111 1101111 0101011101 0111011101 1101010111 1111011111 0100100111 11011101111 11110101111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 514
Words 98
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 406
Words per stanza (avg) 96
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
92

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. more…

All Ambrose Bierce poems | Ambrose Bierce Books

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