Analysis of Advice to a Poet



When your composing sonnets as you must,
All mad-eyed writing of the obvious
Proclaiming of our fall by hate and lust
With little pity in your heart for us,
Please spare us words of wisdom, force and range
Those dissertations that will crush the mind.
Won't ever comprehend your words so strange,
Our unabelieving hearts are left behind.
No words of fright about a dying race
How can we understand unpeopled earth?
A stoney look upon a boulder's face,
The sun mere fire or autumn leaves have worth?
We can't conceive of things undreamt' they're lost
As dream clouds crumble, flowers black with frost.

You tell us that the white-tailed deer will slip
Within the perfect shade where the grow shy
Or turkey tom avoids the seeking eye
And other things we've seen ourselves and spoke.
Just ask us, poet, how we'll ever call,
Dispelled by rhyming words obscure or broke


Scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG XHHIXI
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Etheree  (20%)
Metre 1101010111 1111010100 01011011101 1101001111 1111110101 1111101 110011111 10111101 1111010101 1110111 010101011 01110110111 110111111 1111010111 1111011111 0100111011 1101010101 01011100101 1111011101 0111010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 844
Words 151
Sentences 7
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 14, 6
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 345
Words per stanza (avg) 76
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Submitted on May 01, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
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