Analysis of The Humane Mikado
William Schwenck Gilbert 1836 – 1911
A more humane Mikado never
Did in Japan exist;
To nobody second,
I'm certainly reckoned
A true philanthropist.
It is my very humane endeavour
To make, to some extent,
Each evil liver
A running river
Of harmless merriment.
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time -
To let the punishment fit the crime -
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment -
Of innocent merriment!
All prosy dull society sinners,
Who chatter and bleat and bore,
Are sent to hear sermons
From mystical Germans
Who preach from ten to four:
The amateur tenor, whose vocal villainies
All desire to shirk,
Shall, during off-hours,
Exhibit his powers
To Madame Tussaud's waxwork:
The lady who dyes a chemical yellow,
Or stains her grey hair puce,
Or pinches her figger,
Is blacked like a nigger
With permanent walnut juice:
The idiot who, in railway carriages,
Scribbles on window panes,
We only suffer
To ride on a buffer
In Parliamentary trains.
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time -
To let the punishment fit the crime -
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment -
Of innocent merriment!
The advertising quack who wearies
With tales of countless cures,
His teeth, I've enacted,
Shall all be extracted
By terrified amateurs:
The music-hall singer attends a series
Of masses and fugues and "ops"
By Bach, interwoven
With Spohr and Beethoven,
At classical Monday Pops:
The billiard sharp whom any one catches
His doom's extremely hard -
He's made to dwell
In a dungeon cell
On a spot that's always barred;
And there he plays extravagant matches
In fitless finger-stalls,
On a cloth untrue
With a twisted cue,
And elliptical billiard balls!
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time -
To let the punishment fit the crime -
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment,
Of innocent merriment!
Scheme | abccxadaab EEEEDDBB fghhgfiffixfaaxxjaaj EEEEDDBB fxxxfxkllkmnoonmpqqp EEEEDDBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Song |
Metre | 010101010 100101 1110 110010 010100 1111001010 111101 11010 01010 1101 110101 110101 110100101 0100101 0111001 010001 0111001 11001 111010010 1100101 111110 110010 111111 010101101 101011 110110 010110 110011 01011010010 110111 1101 111010 110011 0100101100 101101 11010 111010 001001 110101 110101 110100101 0100101 0111001 010001 0111001 11001 0100111 111101 111010 111010 11010 01011001010 1100101 11010 110100 1100101 0101110110 110101 1111 00101 101111 0111010010 01101 10101 10101 00100101 110101 110101 110100101 0100101 0111001 010001 0111001 11001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,914 |
Words | 339 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 8, 20, 8, 20, 8 |
Lines Amount | 74 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 264 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 56 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 07, 2023
- 1:43 min read
- 123 Views
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"The Humane Mikado" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41303/the-humane-mikado>.
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