Analysis of Bat, Bat, Come Under my Hat

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts 1860 (Douglas) – 1943 (Toronto)



(A Modernity)
   Twelve good friends
   Passed under her hat,
   And devil a one of them
   Knew where he was at.
   Had they but known,
   Then had they known all things, --
   The littleness of great things,
   The unmeasured immensity of small things.
   They had known the Where and the Why,
  The When and the Wherefore,
  And how the Eternal
  Conceived the Eternal, and therefore
  Beginning began the Beginning;
  They had apprehended
  The ultimate virtue of sinning;
  They had caught the whisper
  That Vega vibrates to Arcturus,
  Piercing the walls
  Of heavy flesh that immure us.

But if they had known,
  Then had there been no mystery;
  And Life had been poorer,
  And laughter unsurer,
  And the shadow of death securer,
  By lack of this brief history.


Scheme AXBXBCDDDXEXEFXFEGXG CAEEEA
Poetic Form
Metre 00100 111 11001 0100111 11111 1111 111111 01111 011111 11101001 01001 010010 01001001 010010010 11010 010010110 111010 11010110 1001 1101111 11111 11111100 011110 0101 001111 11111100
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 756
Words 128
Sentences 5
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 20, 6
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 283
Words per stanza (avg) 63
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
141

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts (January 10, 1860 – November 26, 1943) was a Canadian poet and prose writer. He was one of the first Canadian authors to be internationally known. more…

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