Analysis of In Lupum
Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)
BEYOND the gates thou gav'st a field to till;
I have a larger on my window-sill.
A farm, d'ye say? Is this a farm to you,
Where for all woods I spay one tuft of rue,
And that so rusty, and so small a thing,
One shrill cicada hides it with a wing;
Where one cucumber covers all the plain;
And where one serpent rings himself in vain
To enter wholly; and a single snail
Eats all and exit fasting to the pool?
Here shall my gardener be the dusty mole.
My only ploughman the . . . mole.
Here shall I wait in vain till figs be set,
And till the spring disclose the violet.
Through all my wilds a tameless mouse careers,
And in that narrow boundary appears,
Huge as the stalking lion of Algiers,
Huge as the fabled boar of Calydon.
And all my hay is at one swoop impresst
By one low-flying swallow for her nest,
Strip god Priapus of each attribute
Here finds he scarce a pedestal to foot.
The gathered harvest scarcely brims a spoon;
And all my vintage drips in a cocoon.
Generous are you, but I more generous still:
Take back your farm and stand me half a gill!
Scheme | AABBCCDDEFGGHIJJJDHKLMNNAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101110111 1101011101 01111110111 1111111111 0111001101 1101011101 1110010101 0111010101 1101000101 1101010101 11110010101 110101 1111011111 0101010100 111101101 0011010001 1101010101 11010111 011111111 1111010101 1111110 1111010011 0101010101 0111010001 100111111001 1111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,040 |
Words | 206 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 26 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 816 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 208 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:02 min read
- 64 Views
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