Analysis of Ballad Of A Bun, A
Owen Seaman 1861 – 1936
(AFTER J. D.)
'I am sister to the mountains now,
And sister to the sun and moon.'
'Heed not belletrist jargon.'
From Whitsuntide to Whitsuntide,
That is to say, all through the year,
Her patient pen was occupied
With songs and tales of pleasant cheer.
But still her talent went to waste
Like flotsam on an open sea;
She never hit the public taste,
Or knew the knack of Bellettrie.
Across the sounding City's fogs
There hurtled round her weary head
The thunder of the rolling logs;
"The Critics' Carnival!" she said.
Immortal prigs took heaven by storm,
Prigs scattered largesses of praise;
The work of both was rather warm;
"This is," she said, "the thing that pays!"
Sharp envy turned her wine to blood,
I mean it turned her blood to wine;
And this resolve came like a flood,
"The cake of knowledge must be mine!
"I am in Eve's predicament,
I sha'n't be happy till I've sinned;
Away!" She lightly rose, and sent
Her scruples sailing down the wind.
She did not tear her open breast,
Nor leave behind a track of gore,
But carried flannel next her chest,
And wore the boots she always wore.
Across the sounding City's din
She wandered, looking indiscreet,
And ultimately landed in
The neighbourhood of Regent Street.
She ran against a resolute
Policeman standing like a wall;
She kissed his feet and asked the route
To where they held the Carnival.
Her strange behaviour caused remark;
They said, "Her reason has been lost;"
Beside her eyes the gas was dark,
But that was owing to the frost.
A Decadent was dribbling by;
"Lady," he said, "you seem undone;
You need a panacea; try
This sample of the Bodley bun.
"It is fulfilled of precious spice,
Whereof I give the recipe;,
Take common dripping, stew in vice,
And serve with vertu; taste and see!
"And lo! I brand you on the brow
As kin to Nature's lowest germ;
You are sister to the microbe now,
And second-cousin to the worm."
He gave her of his golden store,
Such hunger hovered in her look;
She took the bun, and asked for more,
And went away and wrote a book.
To put the matter shortly, she
Became the topic of the town;
In all the lists of Bellettrie
Her name was regularly down.
"We recognise," the critics wrote,
"Maupassant's verve and Heine's wit;"
Some even made a verbal note
Of Shakespeare being out of it.
The seasons went and came again;
At length the languid Public cried:
"It is a sorry sort of Lane
That hardly ever turns aside.
"We want a little change of air;
On that," they said, "we must insist;
We cannot any longer bear
The seedy sex-impressionist."
Across the sounding City's din
This rumour smote her on the ear:
"The publishers are going in
For songs and tales of pleasant cheer!"
"Alack!" she said, "I lost the art,
And left my womanhood foredone,
When first I trafficked in the mart
All for a mess of Bodley bun.
"I cannot cut my kin at will,
Or jilt the protoplastic germ;
I am sister to the microbe still,
And second-cousin to the worm!"
Scheme | a bx c aded fafd ghgh ijij klkl xxxx mnmn Opop qxqx rsrs tctc uaua bvbV nwnw axdx yzyz xexe 1 x1 X oxod 2 b2 c 3 v3 v |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011 111010101 01010101 11110 1111 11111101 0101110 11011101 11010111 11011101 11010101 110111 01010101 1110101 01010101 01010011 010111011 110111 01111101 11110111 11010111 11110111 01011101 01110111 11010100 1111110111 01110101 01010101 11110101 11010111 11010101 0101111 01010101 11010001 01000100 011101 1101010 01010101 11110101 11110100 011101 11010111 01010111 11110101 010011001 10111101 1100101 11010101 11011101 1110100 11010101 0111101 01111101 11110101 11101011 01010101 11011101 11010001 11010111 01010101 11010101 01010101 010111 01110001 110101 11011 11010101 1110111 01010101 11010101 11010111 11010101 11010111 11111101 11010101 01010100 01010101 1010101 01001100 11011101 1111101 011101 1111001 11011101 11011111 11011 11101011 01010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,919 |
Words | 575 |
Sentences | 31 |
Stanzas | 24 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 2, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 88 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 93 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:50 min read
- 5 Views
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"Ballad Of A Bun, A" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56327/ballad-of-a-bun%2C-a>.
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