Analysis of Flies
I never kill a fly because
I think that what we have of laws
To regulate and civilize
Our daily life - we owe to flies.
Apropos, I'll tell you of Choo, the spouse
Of the head of the hunters, Wung;
Such a beautiful cave they had for a house,
And a brood of a dozen young.
And Wung would start by the dawn's red light
On the trailing of bird or beast,
And crawl back tired on the brink of night
With food for another feast.
Then the young would dance in their naked glee,
And Choo would fuel the fire;
Fur and feather, how good to see,
And to gorge to heart's desire!
Flesh of rabbit and goose and deer,
With fang-like teeth they tore,
And laughed with faces a bloody smear,
And flung their bones on the floor.
But with morning bright the flies would come,
Clouding into the cave;
You could hardly hear for their noisy hum,
They were big and black and brave.
Darkling the day with gust of greed
They'd swarm in the warm sunrise
On the litter of offal and bones to feed -
A million or so of flies.
Now flies were the wife of Wung's despair;
They would sting and buzz and bite,
And as her only attire was hair
She would itch from morn to night:
But as one day she scratched her hide,
A thought there came to Choo;
"If I were to throw the bones outside,
The flies would go there too."
That spark in a well-nigh monkey mind,
Nay, do not laugh or scorn;
For there in the thoughts of Choo you'll find
Was the sense of Order born;
As she flung the offal far and wide,
And the fly-cloud followed fast,
Battening on the bones outside
The cave was clear at last.
And Wung was pleased when he came at night,
For the air was clean and sweet,
And the cave-kids danced in the gay firelight,
And fed on the new-killed meat;
But the children Choo would chide and boss,
For her cleanly floor was her pride,
And even the baby was taught to toss
His bite of a bone outside.
Then the cave crones came and some admired,
But others were envious;
And they said: "She swanks, she makes us tired
With her complex modern fuss."
However, most of the tribe complied,
Though tradition dourly dies,
And a few Conservatives crossly cried:
"We'll keep our bones and our flies."
So Reformer Choo was much revered
And to all she said: "You see
How my hearth is clean and my floor is cleaned,
And there ain't no flies on me"...
And that was how it all began,
Through horror of muck and mess,
Even in prehistoric Man,
LAW, ORDER and CLEANLINESS'.
And that is why I never kill
A fly, no matter how obscene;
For I believe in God's good will:
He gave us vermin to make us clean.
Scheme | AABB CDCDEFEF GHGHIJIJ KLKLMBMB NENEOPOP QRQROSOS ETETXOXO UVUVOBOB XGXGWXWX XYXY |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101 11111111 110010 101011111 011111101 10110101 10100111101 00110101 011110111 10101111 0111010111 1110101 1011101101 01110010 10101111 01111010 11100101 111111 011100101 0111101 111010111 100101 1110111101 1010101 1011111 110011 1010110111 0101111 110011101 1110101 0101001011 1111111 11111101 011111 110110111 011111 110011101 111111 110011111 1011101 11101101 0011101 10010111 011111 011111111 1011101 001110011 0110111 101011101 10101101 0100101111 1110111 1011101010 1100100 0111111110 1010101 10110101 101011 001010011 111010101 101011101 0111111 1111101111 0111111 01111101 1101101 1000101 1100100 01111101 01110101 11010111 111101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,474 |
Words | 498 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 4 |
Lines Amount | 72 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 195 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:31 min read
- 120 Views
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"Flies" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32124/flies>.
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