Analysis of A highly valuable chain of thoughts

Andrew Lang 1844 (Selkirk, Scottish Borders) – 1912 (Banchory)



HAD cigarettes no ashes,
                 And roses ne'er a thorn,
             No man would be a funker
             Of whin, or burn, or bunker.
             There were no need for mashies,
                 The turf would ne'er be torn,
             Had cigarettes no ashes,
                 And roses ne'er a thorn.

Had cigarettes no ashes,
                 And roses ne'er a thorn,
             The big trout would not ever
             Escape into the river.
             No gut the salmon smashes
                 Would leave us all forlorn,
             Had cigarettes no ashes,
                 And roses ne'er a thorn.

But 'tis an unideal
                 Sad world in which we're born,
             And things will 'go contrairy'
             With Martin and with Mary:
             And every day the real
                 Comes bleakly in with morn,
             And cigarettes have ashes,
                 And every rose a thorn.


Scheme ABccabAB ABccxbAB dbccdbab
Poetic Form
Metre 101110 010101 111101 1111110 101111 011111 101110 010101 101110 010101 0111110 0101010 1101010 111101 101110 010101 1111 110111 01111 1100110 0100101 11011 001110 0100101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 975
Words 121
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 20
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 162
Words per stanza (avg) 40
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
118

Andrew Lang

Andrew Richard Lang FRS CBE was a British scientist and crystallographer. more…

All Andrew Lang poems | Andrew Lang Books

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