Analysis of Forgiven
Alan Alexander Milne 1882 – 1956
I found a little beetle; so that Beetle was his name,
And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.
I put him in a match-box, and I kept him all the day ...
And Nanny let my beetle out -
Yes, Nanny let my beetle out -
She went and let my beetle out -
And Beetle ran away.
She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,
She said she wanted matches and she just took off the lid,
She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch
An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a match.
She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn't mind,
As there's lots and lots of beetles which she's certain we could find,
If we looked about the garden for the holes where beetles hid -
And we'd get another match-box and write BEETLE on the lid.
We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,
And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,
And I saw a kind of something, and I gave a sort of shout:
'A beetle-house and Alexander Beetle coming out!'
It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be,
And he had a sort of look as if he thought it must be Me,
And he had a sort of look as if he thought he ought to say:
'I'm very very sorry that I tried to run away.'
And Nanny's very sorry too for you-know-what-she-did,
And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the lid,
So Nan and Me are friends, because it's difficult to catch
An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match.
Scheme | AABCCCB DDEE FFDD XXCC GGBB DDEE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101110111 01110100110101 11100110111101 01011101 11011101 11011101 010101 11110110110111 11110100111101 11111101110011 101011101010101 11111100110101 111011101110111 111010101011101 011010110110101 11110101010111 011011101010111 011011100110111 0101001010101 11010101110111 011011111111111 011011111111111 11010101111101 0110101111111 0110010101101 11011101110011 10100101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,400 |
Words | 289 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 27 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 179 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 09, 2023
- 1:30 min read
- 223 Views
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"Forgiven" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/240/forgiven>.
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