Analysis of Good and Bad Children
Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)
Children, you are very little,
And your bones are very brittle;
If you would grow great and stately,
You must try to walk sedately.
You must still be bright and quiet,
And content with simple diet;
And remain, through all bewild'ring,
Innocent and honest children.
Happy hearts and happy faces,
Happy play in grassy places--
That was how in ancient ages,
Children grew to kings and sages.
But the unkind and the unruly,
And the sort who eat unduly,
They must never hope for glory--
Theirs is quite a different story!
Cruel children, crying babies,
All grow up as geese and gabies,
Hated, as their age increases,
By their nephews and their nieces.
Scheme | AABB CCXX DDDE BBBB XDDE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (40%) Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 10111010 01111010 11111010 11111010 11111010 01011010 001111 10001010 10101010 10101010 11101010 10111010 100100010 00111010 11101110 111010010 10101010 1111101 10111010 11100110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 654 |
Words | 115 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 101 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 114 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Good and Bad Children" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/31591/good-and-bad-children>.
Discuss this Robert Louis Stevenson poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In