Analysis of 'In the Pink'
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
So Davies wrote: ' This leaves me in the pink. '
Then scrawled his name: ' Your loving sweetheart Willie '
With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink
Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly,
For once his blood ram warm; he had pay to spend,
Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.
He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark
He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,
When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark
In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm
With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear
The simple, silly things she liked to hear.
And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge
Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.
Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,
And everything but wretchedness forgotten.
To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die.
And still the war goes on; he don't know why.
Scheme | ABABCC DEDEFF GHGHII |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101111001 1111110110 1101011101 11010101110 11111111111 1011010111 1101111001 110111101 1111110101 0111110101 1111010001 0101011111 0111110111 11010011110 1111010101 01011010 1110011111 0101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 836 |
Words | 160 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 210 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 422 Views
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