Analysis of The Baffled Grumbler



Whene'er I poke
Sarcastic joke
Replete with malice spiteful,
The people vile
Politely smile
And vote me quite delightful!
Now, when a wight
Sits up all night
Ill-natured jokes devising,
And all his wiles
Are met with smiles,
It's hard, there's no disguising!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!

When German bands,
From music stands
Play Wagner imperFECTly -
I bid them go -
They don't say no,
But off they trot directly!
The organ boys
They stop their noise
With readiness surprising,
And grinning herds
Of hurdy-gurds
Retire apologising!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!

I've offered gold,
In sums untold,
To all who'd contradict me -
I've said I'd pay
A pound a day
To any one who kicked me -
I've bribed with toys
Great vulgar boys
To utter something spiteful,
But, bless you, no!
They WILL be so
Confoundedly politeful!
In short, these aggravating lads,
They tickle my tastes, they feed my fads,
They give me this and they give me that,
And I've nothing whatever to grumble at!


Scheme aabccbddeffeGGHH iijkkjllexfaGGHH mmjnnjllbkkboohh
Poetic Form
Metre 111 0101 0111010 0101 0101 0111010 1101 1111 1101010 0111 1111 1111010 11011101 111101011 010110101 110101101 1101 1101 1100100 1111 1111 1111010 0101 1111 1100010 0101 111 011 11011101 111101011 010110101 110101101 1101 0101 111011 1111 0101 1101111 1111 1101 1101010 1111 1111 11 0111001 110111111 111101111 0110101101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,181
Words 219
Sentences 10
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 16, 16, 16
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 20
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 318
Words per stanza (avg) 72
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:09 min read
142

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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