Analysis of Blue Girls

John Crowe Ransom 1888 (Pulaski) – 1974 (Gambier)



Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
And chattering on the air.

Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished -- yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.


Scheme XAAX BCCB DEED FXFXF
Poetic Form
Metre 1011110001 1001011100 110111010100 0101001 1011010111 0111111111 111110101 0100101 10110110111 01111111010 10111010110010 1111 11111010111 11010101001 111011 1011011111 111111011
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 683
Words 129
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 5
Lines Amount 17
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 134
Words per stanza (avg) 32
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 11, 2023

38 sec read
238

John Crowe Ransom

John Crowe Ransom was an educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. more…

All John Crowe Ransom poems | John Crowe Ransom Books

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    Repeated use of words for effect and emphasis is called ________.
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