Analysis of At the Zoo

Alan Alexander Milne 1882 – 1956



There are lions and roaring tigers,
and enormous camels and things,
There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons,
and a great big bear with wings.
There's a sort of a tiny potamus,
and a tiny nosserus too -
But I gave buns to the elephant
when I went down to the Zoo!

There are badgers and bidgers and bodgers,
and a Super-in-tendent's House,
There are masses of goats, and a Polar,
and different kinds of mouse,
And I think there's a sort of a something
which is called a wallaboo -
But I gave buns to the elephant
when I went down to the Zoo!

If you try to talk to the bison,
he never quite understands;
You can't shake hands with a mingo -
he doesn't like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers
hate saying, "How do you do?" -
But I give buns to the elephant
when I go down to the Zoo!


Scheme ababacDC aexexxDC xfxfacdc
Poetic Form
Metre 111001010 00101001 111101 0011111 10110101 001011 111110100 1111101 11100101 0010011 1110110010 0100111 0111011010 11101 111110100 1111101 111111010 110101 11111010 1101101 01001010 1101111 111110100 1111101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 767
Words 155
Sentences 7
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 199
Words per stanza (avg) 51
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

47 sec read
237

Alan Alexander Milne

Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work. more…

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