Analysis of The Sorrowful Fate of Bartholomew Jones
William Gay 1865 (Scotland) – 1897
Bartholemew Jones made his money in mines,
And although he has left us his fame still shines
As a man who was knowing in various lines.
It wasn't his line to write or to spell,
To teach or to preach, to dig or to fell,
But to handle his shares, and to keep out of hell.
He knelt every day at the foot of the Throne
(To use his own words), yet he wore (it was known)
His garments of grace o'er a heart made of stone.
And when Death would no longer concede a respite,
He hied straight away to the regions of light,
As a man of whom no one could question the right.
He wandered for long o'er the pavements of gold,
Saw wonders and glories around him unfold,
But somehow all seemed to him dismal and cold.
He tired of the sun's everlasting rays,
Grew sick of the harps and the hymns and the praise,
And drooped in the glare of the glittering ways.
'If this be the heaven I laboured to win,
I'd better have taken full measure of sin,'
He moaned to the angel who first let him in.
Said the angel, while looking to bolt and to bar,
'I fear, sir, you're somewhat mistaken so far,
But this is the hell where the hypocrites are.'
Scheme | AAABBBCCCDEEFFFGGGHHHIII |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111001 0111111111 101111001001 1101111111 1111111111 111011011111 111001101101 11111111111 110111001111 011111001010 11101101011 101111111001 110111001011 11001001101 1111111001 1101010101 11101001001 01001101001 1110101111 11011011011 11101011110 101011011011 11111101011 1110110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,104 |
Words | 226 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 24 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 857 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 222 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 104 Views
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