Analysis of A Child's Pet
William Henry Davies 1871 – 1940
When I sailed out of Baltimore
With twice a thousand head of sheep,
They would not eat, they would not drink,
But bleated o'er the deep.
Inside the pens we crawled each day,
To sort the living from the dead;
And when we reached the Mersey's mouth
Had lost five hundred head.
Yet every night and day one sheep,
That had no fear of man or sea,
Stuck through the bars its pleading face,
And it was stroked by me.
And to the sheep-men standing near,
'You see,' I said, 'this one tame sheep:
It seems a child has lost her pet,
And cried herself to sleep.'
So every time we passed it by,
Sailing to England's slaughter-house,
Eight ragged sheep-men - tramps and thieves -
Would stroke that sheep's black nose.
Scheme | XAXA XBXB ACXC XAXA XXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (80%) Etheree (30%) |
Metre | 1111110 11010111 11111111 111001 01011111 11010101 0111011 111101 110010111 11111111 11011101 011111 01011101 11111111 11011101 010111 110011111 10110101 11011101 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 698 |
Words | 138 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 108 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 29 Views
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"A Child's Pet" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/57050/a-child%27s-pet>.
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