Analysis of Lost Mr. Blake
Mr. Blake was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of
grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or - if Good
Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it - three times a
week.
He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's distresses,
He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner
sort of way.
I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics,
When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the
proper width of a chasuble's hem;
I have even known him to sneer at albs - and as for dalmatics,
Words can't convey an idea of the contempt he expressed for THEM.
He didn't believe in persons who, not being well off themselves,
are obliged to confine their charitable exertions to collecting
money from wealthier people,
And looked upon individuals of the former class as ecclesiastical
hawks;
He used to say that he would no more think of interfering with his
priest's robes than with his church or his steeple,
And that he did not consider his soul imperilled because somebody
over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to dress himself up
like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES.
This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless
That he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious
middle-aged sister, by the name of BIGGS.
She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had always
been particularly blameless;
Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate competence,
owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter of figs.
She was an excellent person in every way - and won the respect even
of MRS. GRUNDY,
She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn't have wasted a penny if
she had owned the Koh-i-noor.
She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of Sunday,
And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all
the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends
(when she had quite done with them), and made them into an
excellent soup for the deserving poor.
I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE - that outcast of
society,
And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to look
dubious and to cough,
She would say, "Oh, my friends, it's because I hope to bring this
poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety,
And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was
uncommonly well off.
And when MR. BLAKE'S dissipated friends called his attention to the
frown or the pout of her,
Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an
unmentionable place,
He would say that "she would be a very decent old girl when all
that nonsense was knocked out of her,"
And his method of knocking it out of her is one that covered him
with disgrace.
She was fond of going to church services four times every Sunday,
and, four or five times in the week, and never seemed to pall of
them,
So he hunted out all the churches within a convenient distance that
had services at different hours, so to speak;
And when he had married her he positively insisted upon their going
to all of them,
So they contrived to do about twelve churches every Sunday, and, if
they had luck, from twenty-two to twenty-three in the course of the
week.
She was fond of dropping his sovereigns ostentatiously into the
plate, and she liked to see them stand out rather conspicuously
against the commonplace half-crowns and shillings,
So he took her to all the charity sermons, and if by any
extraordinary chance there wasn't a charity sermon anywhere, he
would drop a couple of sovereigns (one for him and one for her)
into the poor-box at the door;
And as he always deducted the sums thus given in charity from the
housekeeping money, and the money he allowed her for her bonnets
and frillings,
She soon began to find that even charity, if you allow it to
interfere with your personal luxuries, becomes an intolerable bore.
On Sundays she was always melancholy and anything but good society,
For that day in her household was a day of sighings and sobbings
and wringing of hands and shaking of heads:
She wouldn't hear of a button being sewn on a glove, because it was
a work neither of necessity nor of piety,
And strictly prohib
Scheme | abcaxdB efgaf edheh xijjkgjlxk mmnxmxn xloafpxqx clxxxlrx daqspaxs fchxbihodB dlxllatdeext lexrlx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101101001011010 111110110100111 110010110011010011 11011010 010111011111111 101101101101110 1 11101011001001110 101001111111111 01011001101001010 11100101010101010 111 11110100111 10100111010100110 1011011 11101111110111 11011010100110111 1100101011101101 101101110000101010 10110010 0101010010101100100 1 1111111111101011 1111111110 011110101110110 10111110010111011 11010011 110110011110 1110010100100100010 1011010111 1101001010111111 1100010 01101100011100100 1011100010001011 11110010010010100110 11010 1101110101100101 1110111 1111111110001011 0100101000100001111 0101010010110101 1111111011011 1001100101 1110111110111111 0100 01010010101100111 100011 11111110111111 10101111000100 00101010111111 10011 0110110011101010 110110 0101110101101111 010001 1111111010101111 11011110 01101101110111101 101 11111011100111001 011110010101111 1 111011010010010101 1100110010111 01111001100001001110 1111 11011101110100101 1111101110100110 1 1111101100100010 1011111111001000 0101011010 11101101001001110 01001110010010101 110101101110110 01011101 011101001110010010 101000101010101 01 110111110100110111 0111100100011010001 11111100010110100 1110011011101 0101101011 110110101011010111 01101010011100 0101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 4,409 |
Words | 802 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 5, 5, 10, 7, 9, 8, 8, 10, 12, 6 |
Lines Amount | 87 |
Letters per line (avg) | 41 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 321 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 73 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 4:03 min read
- 109 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Lost Mr. Blake" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41247/lost-mr.-blake>.
Discuss this William Schwenck Gilbert 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