Analysis of The City Of Damn-His Soul
Robert Kirkland Kernighan 1854 (Canada) – 1926
He was nursed and cursed : he lied and died,
In the City of Damn-His-Soul ;
He was mothered and smothered in the slimy tide
Of the City of Damn-His-Soul,
And, strange to say, there were preachers there,
And temples, many and broad ;
But he never had taught him the simplest prayer,
Or had heard of the word of God !
For nobody cared for the poor galoot,
And fewer had cared for his soul
For they said that Hell had a new recruit
From the City of Damn-His-Soul.
But the angels they waited, outside the gate
Of the City of Damn His Soul ;
And they bore him away, with step elate,
To the City of Save-His-Soul ;
And the angels they put him to school How odd !
And they taught him the A B C
Of the Love, and the Wisdom, and Truth of God.
On the winterless side of the sea
He played and was taught, with the angels for chums,
Where the rivers of Paradise roll :
Ah, me, what a change from the bums and the slums
Of the City of Damn-His-Soul !
He has learned a trade in that wonderful place
In the City of Save-His-Soul ;
All traces of sin have been wiped from his face
In the college of Save-His-Soul ;
They Ve taught him to work : they Ve taught him to
pray:
They 've taught him to read and write ;
He works in the gardens of God, by day,
And learns new lessons by night.
The poor lone youth, who had carried the hod
For the devil's designs below,
Is a power and a prince in the realms of God
And I 'm glad that these things are so.
Scheme | a ba Bc xc da bx b e be bd fd fg bg B hb h b xi ji ja kd k |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111011101 00101111 11101000101 10101111 011110101 0101001 11101110101 11110111 1111011 01011111 1111110101 10101111 10101101101 10101111 0111011101 10101111 00101111111 01110011 10100100111 1011101 11011101011 10101101 11101101001 10101111 11101011001 00101111 11011111111 00101111 11111111111 1 11111101 1100101111 0111011 0111111001 10100101 101000100111 011111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,436 |
Words | 281 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 22 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1 |
Lines Amount | 37 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 49 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 13 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 70 Views
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"The City Of Damn-His Soul" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/43439/the-city-of-damn-his-soul>.
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