Analysis of A Recipe

William Schwenck Gilbert 1836 – 1911



Take a pair of sparkling eyes,
Hidden, ever and anon,
In a merciful eclipse -
Do not heed their mild surprise -
Having passed the Rubicon.
Take a pair of rosy lips;
Take a figure trimly planned -
Such as admiration whets
(Be particular in this);
Take a tender little hand,
Fringed with dainty fingerettes,
Press it - in parenthesis; -
Take all these, you lucky man -
Take and keep them, if you can.

Take a pretty little cot -
Quite a miniature affair -
Hung about with trellised vine,
Furnish it upon the spot
With the treasures rich and rare
I've endeavoured to define.
Live to love and love to live -
You will ripen at your ease,
Growing on the sunny side -
Fate has nothing more to give.
You're a dainty man to please
If you are not satisfied.
Take my counsel, happy man:
Act upon it, if you can!


Scheme ABCABCDAEDAEBB FGBFGBXHIXHIBB
Poetic Form
Metre 1011101 101001 0010001 1111101 1010100 1011101 101011 110101 1010001 1010101 11101 1100100 1111101 1011111 1010101 1010001 101111 1010101 1010101 11101 1110111 1110111 1010101 1110111 1010111 111110 1110101 1011111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 780
Words 156
Sentences 7
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 14, 14
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 306
Words per stanza (avg) 77
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
105

William Schwenck Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist librettist poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan of which the most famous include HMS Pinafore The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre The Mikado These as well as most of their other Savoy operas continue to be performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies repertory companies schools and community theatre groups Lines from these works have become part of the English language such as short sharp shock What never Well hardly ever and Let the punishment fit the crime Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads an extensive collection of light verse accompanied by his own comical drawings His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti numerous stories poems lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Gilberts lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since Source - Wikipedia more…

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