Analysis of The Cloak Model

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



'My son,' the stranger thus began,
And drew me to the window side,
'Now here are beauties better than
You ever have dreamed, or ever can.
But yet beware!' he cried.

A tidy citizen was he
Although a dismal daffy one.
'See this one pose and pout for me
And march around magnificently.
But I'm immune, my son.

'Observe how ripe the lady's lips,
How Titianesque the mop of hair,
And where the great white shoulder dips
Beneath its gauzy half-eclipse,
You well may stare and stare.

'When I was young I said as you
Are saying in your sapphic youth,

That ah! such lips were certain cue,
And look! her bosom's rhythm too,
It signified her truth;

'Her broad brow meant intelligence
And something better than a bone,
Her body's curves were spirit's tents,
Her fresh young skin was innocence
Instead of meat that shone.

'I wish the moralists would thresh
(Indeed the thing is very droll)
God's oldest joke, forever fresh:
The fact that in the finest flesh
There isn't any soul.'


Scheme ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF GH GGH IJXIJ KLKKL
Poetic Form Etheree  (37%)
Metre 11010101 01110101 11110101 110111101 110111 01010011 1010101 11110111 010101000 110111 01110101 110111 01011101 0111101 111101 11111111 1100111 11110101 0101101 11001 01110100 01010101 01010101 01111100 011111 11010011 01011101 11010101 01100101 110101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 952
Words 179
Sentences 12
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 2, 3, 5, 5
Lines Amount 30
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 107
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 28, 2023

54 sec read
41

John Crowe Ransom

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

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