Analysis of On A Thief (From The Greek)

William Cowper 1731 (Berkhamsted) – 1800 (Dereham)



When Aulus, the nocturnal thief, made prize
Of Hermes, swift-wing'd envoy of the skies,
Hermes, Arcadia's king, the thief divine,
Who when an infant stole Apollo's kine,
And whom, as arbiter and overseer
Of our gymnastic sports, we planted here;
'Hermes,' he cried, 'you meet no new disaster
Ofttimes the pupil goes beyond the master.'


Scheme AABBCDCC
Poetic Form
Metre 110010111 1101110101 10110101 1111010101 01110001010 11001011101 10111111010 1010101010
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 337
Words 59
Sentences 2
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 8
Lines Amount 8
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 259
Words per stanza (avg) 55
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

18 sec read
33

William Cowper

William Macquarie Cowper was an Australian Anglican archdeacon and Dean of Sydney. more…

All William Cowper poems | William Cowper Books

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