Analysis of A Soldier's Dream



Last night as I toasted
My wet feet and roasted
A small bit of beef by a similar blaze,
While nought but the wheezings,
The snorings, and sneezings
Of comrades grouping in Dreamland's haze
Disturbed the fine vision -
The picture Elysian -
That Fancy's weird wand conjured up to my thought,
As she stood like a spooke,
In a garb of blue smoke,
And amid the hot embers her wonders she wrought.

Adown a highway
We were marching so gay
An army with banners bedecked o'er and o'er
With the brightest garlands
Wove by fairest of hands,
While a flaming bouquet stuck in each musket bore.
Each triumphal arch
It met on the march
Was blazoned with 'Peace'; 'Welcome home each loved one';
While maid, wife, and mother
Would with rapture discover
And rush out to meet lover, husband, and son!

I forgot all my sore toes -
Nay, all of my woes -
As I sprang to the threshold and clasped her dear waist;
And every campaign
I'd gone over again
To get from those ripe lips another such taste.
But as I flew to her
I dropped my fine skewer,
And with it my supper. I mastered my grief
As the vanishing vision
of joy's Elysian,
But I couldn't get over the loss of the beef!


Scheme XXAAAABBCDDC XDEAXXFFBEEB GGHXXHEEIBBI
Poetic Form
Metre 111110 111010 01111101001 11101 0101 1110011 010110 0101 1111101111 111101 001111 001011001011 101 101011 1101100110010 10101 111011 101001101101 10101 11101 111111111 111010 1110010 01111101001 1011111 11111 11110101011 010001 111001 11111101011 111110 111110 01111011011 1010010 111 111011001101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,126
Words 221
Sentences 7
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 12, 12, 12
Lines Amount 36
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 299
Words per stanza (avg) 73
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:08 min read
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