Analysis of To James Whitcomb Riley
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges,
And I have not seen your face.
But since I have read your verses
'Tis easy to guess the rest,--
Because in the hearts of the children
There is neither East nor West.
Born to a thousand fortunes
Of good or evil hap,
Once they were kings together,
Throned in a mother's lap.
Surely they know that secret--
Yellow and black and white--
When they meet as kings together
In innocent dreams at night.
By a moon they all can play with--
Grubby and grimed and unshod,
Very happy together,
And very near to God.
Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place:
There is water between our lodges,
And you cannot see my face.--
And that is well--for crying
Should neither be written nor seen,
But if I call you Smoke-in-the-Eyes,
I know you will know what I mean.
Scheme | ABCb cdxd xefe xgfg xafx ABCb xhxh |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1111010 011111 1110011010 0111111 11111110 1101101 010011010 1110111 1101010 111101 1101010 100101 1011110 100101 11111010 0100111 10111111 100101 1010010 010111 1111010 011111 1110011010 0110111 0111110 11011011 111111001 11111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 887 |
Words | 166 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 94 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 65 Views
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"To James Whitcomb Riley" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/33620/to-james-whitcomb-riley>.
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