Analysis of Lines to a Don
Hilaire Belloc 1870 (La Celle-Saint-Cloud) – 1953
Remote and ineffectual Don
That dared attack my Chesterton,
With that poor weapon, half-impelled,
Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held,
Unworthy for a tilt with men--
Your quavering and corroded pen;
Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,
Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;
Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,
Don nervous, Don of crudities;
Don clerical, Don ordinary,
Don self-absorbed and solitary;
Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;
Don middle-class, Don sycophantic,
Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic;
Don hypocritical, Don bad,
Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad;
Don (since a man must make and end),
Don that shall never be my friend.
Don different from those regal Dons!
With hearts of gold and lungs of bronze,
Who shout and bang and roar and bawl
The Absolute across the hall,
Or sail in amply bellying gown
Enormous through the Sacred Town,
Bearing from College to their homes
Deep cargoes of gigantic tomes;
Dons admirable! Dons of Might!
Uprising on my inward sight
Compact of ancient tales, and port
And sleep--and learning of a sort.
Dons English, worthy of the land;
Dons rooted; Dons that understand.
Good Dons perpetual that remain
A landmark, walling in the plain--
The horizon of my memories--
Like large and comfortable trees.
Don very much apart from these,
Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted,
Don to thine own damnation quoted,
Perplexed to find thy trivial name
Reared in my verse to lasting shame.
Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing,
Repulsive Don--Don past all bearing.
Don of the cold and doubtful breath,
Don despicable, Don of death;
Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level;
Don evil, Don that serves the devil.
Don ugly--that makes fifty lines.
There is a Canon which confines
A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse
If written in Iambic Verse
To fifty lines. I never cut;
I far prefer to end it--but
Believe me I shall soon return.
My fires are banked, but still they burn
To write some more about the Don
That dared attack my Chesterton.
Scheme | aBccddeeffgghhhhiijj kkllmmnnooppqqrrss sxxttuuvveewwxxyyzzaB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01001001 11011100 11110101 1010101 01010111 110000101 111101110 111111000 110011101 110111 11001100 11010100 11011010 11010100 11011010 111101010 1010011 11011101 11011101 11110111 110011101 11110111 11010101 0100101 1101011 01010101 10110111 1110101 11000111 01011101 10110101 01010101 11010101 1101101 110100101 0110001 001011100 11010001 11010111 11111010 111101010 011111001 10111101 11011010 010111110 11010101 10100111 110101010 110111010 11011101 1101011 0111 110011 11011101 11011111 01111101 110111111 11110101 11011100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,944 |
Words | 335 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 20, 18, 21 |
Lines Amount | 59 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 523 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 111 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 16, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 153 Views
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"Lines to a Don" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19205/lines-to-a-don>.
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