Analysis of Disillusioned - By an Ex-Enthusiast
William Schwenck Gilbert 1836 – 1911
Oh, that my soul its gods could see
As years ago they seemed to me
When first I painted them;
Invested with the circumstance
Of old conventional romance:
Exploded theorem!
The bard who could, all men above,
Inflame my soul with songs of love,
And, with his verse, inspire
The craven soul who feared to die
With all the glow of chivalry
And old heroic fire;
I found him in a beerhouse tap
Awaking from a gin-born nap,
With pipe and sloven dress;
Amusing chums, who fooled his bent,
With muddy, maudlin sentiment,
And tipsy foolishness!
The novelist, whose painting pen
To legions of fictitious men
A real existence lends,
Brain-people whom we rarely fail,
Whene'er we hear their names, to hail
As old and welcome friends;
I found in clumsy snuffy suit,
In seedy glove, and blucher boot,
Uncomfortably big.
Particularly commonplace,
With vulgar, coarse, stockbroking face,
And spectacles and wig.
My favourite actor who, at will,
With mimic woe my eyes could fill
With unaccustomed brine:
A being who appeared to me
(Before I knew him well) to be
A song incarnadine;
I found a coarse unpleasant man
With speckled chin - unhealthy, wan -
Of self-importance full:
Existing in an atmosphere
That reeked of gin and pipes and beer -
Conceited, fractious, dull.
The warrior whose ennobled name
Is woven with his country's fame,
Triumphant over all,
I found weak, palsied, bloated, blear;
His province seemed to be, to leer
At bonnets in Pall Mall.
Would that ye always shone, who write,
Bathed in your own innate limelight,
And ye who battles wage,
Or that in darkness I had died
Before my soul had ever sighed
To see you off the stage!
Scheme | AAXBBX CCDXAX EEXXXX FFGHHG IIJKKJ LLXAAF XXXMMX NNODDO PPQRRQ |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 11011111 111101 0101010 11010001 01010 01111101 01111111 011101 01011111 11011100 0101010 1110011 110111 11011 01011111 11010100 010100 01001101 11010101 010101 11011101 1111111 110101 1101011 0101011 01001 100010 1101101 010001 1110111 11011111 10101 01010111 01111111 011 11010101 11010101 110101 0100110 11110101 010101 010010101 11011101 010101 1111101 11011111 11011 1111111 1011011 011101 11010111 01111101 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,583 |
Words | 287 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 142 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:26 min read
- 98 Views
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