Analysis of Mutton
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)
In the everlasting summer, when the town is limp with heat,
and the asphalt of the footpath curls your boots and burns your feet:
When you're creased and crabbed and sodden, and can hardly raise a crawl,
And the persperation's drippin' in a constant waterfall;
There's a penetratin' odor gets abroad and fairly roars;
It will creep in through the keyholes and it sneaks beneath the doors;
And it fills your happy home up from the cellar to the roof,
Until ev'ry other odour holds its breath and stands aloof.
That's Mutton! Mutton!
Everlastin' Mutton!
All-pervadin', never-fadin' smell of cookin' sheep.
Into ev'ry room 'twill roam, chasin' you from house and home,
Mutton flaunted, mutton-haunted, even in your sleep.
You can smell it in the parlour, you can feel it in the hall,
you can HEAR it in the kitchen, where it hugs you like a pall,
Hov'ring o'er your couch at midnight, wafting thro' your troubled sleep:
First to greet you in the mornin' when the day begins to peep.
Seek you vainly to evade it in an open-air retreat,
It will rise and upper-cut you, from the gratin's in the street.
Vain are all your disinfectants, for they fail the woes to drown
Of a mutton-ridden people in a mutton-scented town.
Oh, the irony of hearin' songs about the home, sweet home;
When you swelter in an oven where the kitchen odours roam.
When each kindly word is wafted on a mutton-scented breeze,
And each sigh stirs up remembrance of a week of hashed-up teas;
Where endearing terms are flavoured with a touch of mutton raw,
And you sample last week's dinner, ev'ry tender breath you draw.
Do you wonder that our home-life isn't what it ought to be?
Do you know what sets us drinkin', in our abject misery?
It's Mutton! Mutton!
Soul-destroyin' Mutton!
Over-cloudin', odour-shroudin' all in life that's bright;
By a thoughtless movement stirred, chokin' down a kindly word,
Ever-present, effervescent, mornin', noon and night.
Scheme | AABBCCDD EEFGF BXFFAAHH GGIIXXJJEEKXK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 00010101011111 0011011110111 111010100110101 0011001010 101101010101 11101010110101 011110111010101 0111011110101 11010 110 111011111 0111111011101 1010101010011 111100101111001 111100101111101 11011111011101 11110011010111 111010110110101 11101011101001 111100101110111 101010100010101 101001101010111 11100110101011 111011101010101 011110101011111 10101111011101 01101110110111 1110110111011111 111111101010100 11010 1110 1011110111 1010101110101 10100101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,898 |
Words | 332 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 5, 8, 13 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 44 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 373 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 83 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:43 min read
- 76 Views
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"Mutton" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6465/mutton>.
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