Analysis of Babylon
Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)
The child alone a poet is:
Spring and Fairyland are his.
Truth and Reason show but dim,
And all’s poetry with him.
Rhyme and music flow in plenty
For the lad of one-and-twenty,
But Spring for him is no more now
Than daisies to a munching cow;
Just a cheery pleasant season,
Daisy buds to live at ease on.
He’s forgotten how he smiled
And shrieked at snowdrops when a child,
Or wept one evening secretly
For April’s glorious misery.
Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.
Wisdom made a breach and battered
Babylon to bits: she scattered
To the hedges and ditches
All our nursery gnomes and witches.
Lob and Puck, poor frantic elves,
Drag their treasures from the shelves.
Jack the Giant-killer’s gone,
Mother Goose and Oberon,
Bluebeard and King Solomon.
Robin, and Red Riding Hood
Take together to the wood,
And Sir Galahad lies hid
In a cave with Captain Kidd.
None of all the magic hosts,
None remain but a few ghosts
Of timorous heart, to linger on
Weeping for lost Babylon.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEFGGCCCHIIJJKKLFEMMNNOOFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010101 101011 1010111 0110011 10101010 10111010 11111111 11010101 10101010 10111111 1010111 0111101 11110100 11100100 10111010 1000111 10101010 1011110 1010010 1101001010 1011101 1110101 1010101 101010 101100 1001101 1010101 011011 0011101 1110101 1011011 110011101 101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,003 |
Words | 182 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 33 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 786 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 180 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 137 Views
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