Analysis of A Triumph Of Order.
John Milton Hay 1838 (Salem, Indiana) – 1905 ( Newbury, New Hampshire)
A squad of regular infantry,
In the Commune's closing days,
Had captured a crowd of rebels
By the wall of Pere-la-Chaise.
There were desperate men, wild women,
And dark-eyed Amazon girls,
And one little boy, with a peach-down cheek
And yellow clustering curls.
The captain seized the little waif,
And said, "What dost thou here?"
"Sapristi, Citizen captain!
I'm a Communist, my dear!"
"Very well! Then you die with the others!"
- "Very well! That's my affair;
But first let me take to my mother,
Who lives by the wine-shop there,
"My father's watch. You see it;
A gay old thing, is it not?
It would please the old lady to have it;
Then I'll come back here, and be shot."
"That is the last we shall see of him,"
The grizzled captain grinned,
As the little man skimmed down the hill
Like a swallow down the wind.
For the joy of killing had lost its zest
In the glut of those awful days,
And Death writhed, gorged like a greedy snake,
From the Arch to Pere-la-Chaise.
But before the last platoon had fired
The child's shrill voice was heard;
"Houp-la! the old girl made such a row
I feared I should break my word."
Against the bullet-pitted wall
He took his place with the rest,
A button was lost from his ragged blouse,
Which showed his soft white breast.
"Now blaze away, my children!
With your little one-two-three!"
The Chassepots tore the stout young heart,
And saved Society.
Scheme | ABXB CDXD XXCX XEXE FGFG XXXX HBXB IIXI XHXH CAXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (70%) Etheree (38%) |
Metre | 011100100 001101 11001110 1011111 10101110 011101 0110110111 0101001 01010101 011111 110010 1010011 1011111010 1011101 111111110 1110111 1101111 0111111 1110110111 11111011 110111111 010101 101011101 1010101 1011101111 00111101 011110101 1011111 1010101110 011111 110111101 1111111 01010101 1111101 0101111101 111111 1101110 1110111 0110111 010100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,375 |
Words | 265 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 105 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:19 min read
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"A Triumph Of Order." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55966/a-triumph-of-order.>.
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