Analysis of Gone but not forgotten
Roger McGough 1937 (Litherland)
Was it really that long ago?
Where the years have flown heaven only knows
We think about him often
As the nights close in and the whisky flows
O the wit of the man the yarns he could spin
About Cambridge and MI5
Undercover at Greenham Common
And lucky to get out alive
Adrift in a shark-infested
He swam and kept afloat
Until rescued by pirates
In a people-smuggling boat
Flung from the saddle at Ascot
Remounted and came in third
The night with Princess Margaret
We hung on every word
The SAS, the Hockney heist
The life and soul of the jail
Married? Only his private life
He kept beneath a veil
A God-fearing atheist
And a poet back in the day
Always a novel half finished
Thankfully remaining that way
At his best, of course, in the Red Lion
Corner table, pint of bitter in his hand
Although it might have been the Sun?
Or the Coach and Horses? Or Guinness?
How he did this-and-that and such-and-such.
Stars? He'd met them all
O the wit of the man!
The tales we would tell if only we could recall
For it is the season now of hearses and severed flowers
How each coffin looks the same
Gone, perhaps, but not forgotten
Dear old whatsisname.
Scheme | XA BA XC BX XD XD XE XE XF XF XG XG BX BX XH XH XX BC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101101 1011110101 1101110 1011000101 10110101111 011001 01011010 01011101 01001010 110101 0110110 0010101 1101011 10101 01110100 1111001 010101 0101101 10101101 110101 0110100 00101001 1010110 10001011 1111100110 10101110011 1111101 101010110 1111010101 11111 101101 01111110111 11101011101010 1110101 10111010 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,106 |
Words | 215 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 18 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 50 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 12 |
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"Gone but not forgotten" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/53615/gone-but-not-forgotten>.
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