Analysis of The Merman

James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)



Who would be
A merman gay,
Singing alone,
Sitting alone,
With a mermaid's knee,
For instance--hey--
For a throne?

I would be a merman gay;
I would sit and sing the whole day long;
I would fill my lungs with the strongest brine,
And squirt it up in a spray of song,
And soak my head in my liquid voice;
I'd curl my tail in curves divine,
And let each curve in a kink rejoice.
I'd tackle the mermaids under the sea,
And yank 'em around till they yanked me,
Sportively, sportively;
And then we would wiggle away, away,
To the pea-green groves on the coast of day,
Chasing each other sportively.

There would be neither moon nor star;
But the waves would twang like a wet guitar
Low thunder and thrum in the darkness grum--
Neither moon nor star;
We would shriek aloud in the dismal dales--
Shriek at each other and squawk and squeal,
"All night!" rakishly, rakishly;
They would pelt me with oysters and wiggletails,
Laughing and clapping their hands at me,
"All night!" prankishly, prankishly;
But I would toss them back in mine,
Lobsters and turtles of quaint design;
Then leaping out in an abrupt way,
I'd snatch them bald in my devilish glee,
And skip away when they snatched at me,
Fiendishly, fiendishly.
O, what a jolly life I'd lead,
Ah, what a "bang-up" life indeed!
Soft are the mermaids under the sea--
We would live merrily, merrily.


Scheme ABCCABC BDEDFEFAAGBBG HHXHXGGFAGEEBAAGXXAA
Poetic Form Tetractys  (33%)
Etheree  (28%)
Metre 111 011 1001 1001 1011 1101 101 111011 111010111 1111110101 011100111 011101101 11110101 011100101 110011001 011011111 11 0111100101 1011110111 101101 11110111 1011110101 1100100101 10111 1110100101 111100101 1111 111111001 100101111 1111 11111101 100101101 110101011 111101101 010111111 11 11010111 11011101 11011001 111100100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,315
Words 250
Sentences 9
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 7, 13, 20
Lines Amount 40
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 343
Words per stanza (avg) 81
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:15 min read
75

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. more…

All James Whitcomb Riley poems | James Whitcomb Riley Books

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