Analysis of Crabs
Arthur Bayldon 1865 – 1958
(Written on the Queensland Beach)
Poisonous, bloated, crab-like shapes
Crawl in gangs around these capes—
Stopping here and feeding there;
Listening, crawling everywhere;
Searching every rotten weed
With a frothing wild-eyed greed;
Fighting o’er a lump of scurf,
Or a red boil of the earth;
Thrusting up their writhing claws
To their grinning, fiend-like maws.
And these horrid creatures wet
With a thick unwholesome sweat
Have most hideous banquets here
On the poor drowned marineer.
Down they hurry eagerly,
Chittering all the way with glee;
They have smelt the tainted air
From that body festering there.
How they twitch their claws and pry
Into each distorted eye;
How they spit on him with spite
As their nippers pinch and bite;
How they strip him clean and bare,
Leaving not a morsel there,
Till they’re gorged and all squat near
Fleshless remnants with a leer.
When the billows near them roll,
Each will scoop himself a hole
In the mudbank and therein
Sleep like an embodied sin.
In the world so crass and blind
Human crabs feed on their kind—
All that fall into their power;
Skulking near their dismal holes,
They sniff out poor wretched souls
Thrown by life’s unpitying sea
On the beach of misery.
Scheme | X AABBCCXXXADDXBEEBBFFGGBBXBHHIIJJXKKEE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101011 10010111 1010111 1010101 1001010 10100101 101111 1010111 1011101 1011101 1110111 0110101 10111 11100101 10111 1110100 110111 1110101 11101001 1111101 0110101 1111111 111101 1111101 1010101 1110111 110101 1010111 1110101 001001 1110101 0011101 1011111 11101110 111101 1111101 11111 1011100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,187 |
Words | 208 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 37 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 484 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 103 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:02 min read
- 125 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Crabs" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3790/crabs>.
Discuss this Arthur Bayldon poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In