Analysis of Arms and the Boy
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen 1893 – 1918
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads
Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.
For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.
Scheme | XXXX XXXX AAXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011011101 11110111011 111101011 01011111 1111111101 1111000111 1111001111 110101101 11111101110 11110111010 0111110111 1101010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 541 |
Words | 101 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 12 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 144 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
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