Analysis of Worms
Worms finer for fishing you couldn't be wishing;
I delved them dismayed from the velvety sod;
The rich loam upturning I gathered them squirming,
big, fat, gleamy earthworms, all ripe for my rod.
Thinks I, without waiting, my hook I'll be baiting,
And flip me a fish from the foam of the pool;
Then Mother beholding, came crying and scolding:
"You're late, ye young devil! Be off to the school."
So grabbing me bait-tin I dropped them fat worms in,
With globs of green turf for their comfort and cheer;
And there, clean forgotten, no doubt dead and rotten;
I left them to languish for nigh on a year.
One day to be cleaning the byre I was meaning,
When seeing that old rusty can on the shelf,
Says I: "To my thinking, them worms must be stinking:
Begorrah! I'd better find out for myself."
So I opened the tin, held my nose and looked in;
And what did I see? Why, most nothing at all.
Just darkness and dank. and . . . a something that stank,
Tucked down in a corner, a greasy grey ball.
My worms - no, not dead, but thin as a thread,
Each seemed to reproach me, protesting its worth:
So softly I took them and tenderly shook them
Back into the bosom of mothering earth.
I'm now in the City; 'tis grand, but I pity
The weariful wretches that crawl in its grime;
The dregs and the scum and the spawn of the slum,
And the poor little children that's cradled in crime.
Sure I see them in terms of my pitiful worms,
surviving despite desperation and doom,
And I wish I was God, with a smile and a nod
To set them all down in a valley of bloom,
Saying: "Let these rejoice with a wonderful voice
For mothering earth and for fathering sea,
And healing of sun, for each weariful one
Of these poor human worms is a wee bit of me. . . .
Let your be the blame and yours be the shame:
What ye do unto them ye do also to ME."
Scheme | ABABACACDEFE AGAGDHXHXIXI JKXKXLBLXJFJXJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110110110110 11101101001 0111110110 111111111 110110111110 01101101101 110010110010 11111011101 110111111110 11111111001 011010111010 11111011101 111110011110 11011101101 111110111110 11101111 111001111010 01111111011 11001001011 11001001011 1111111101 11101101011 110111010011 10101011001 110010111110 01111011 01001001101 00110101101 111101111001 0100101001 011111101001 11111001011 101101101001 11001011001 010111111 111101101111 1110101101 111101111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,783 |
Words | 353 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 12, 14 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 459 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 118 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:46 min read
- 123 Views
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"Worms" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32760/worms>.
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