Analysis of The Old Brass Rail
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)
Foot on the rail in the olden days,
For all the world to see,
A jolly old lot, they took their pot
All unashamed and free,
Passing their jest from lip to lip,
Puffing away the foam,
Till a small voice cried from the path outside:
'Ma says, you're to come on home.'
Foot on the rail they faced the world
And cared not who should know;
And many they went, thro' a life mis-spent
As man a man must go
Straight to the dogs from the old brass rail,
Lost and ruined and wrecked:
But he went to his fate with the game played straight:
And he went with his head erect.
Then came the camel, with his lip adroop,
Calling an end to fun.
Tho' his cause was strong, his way was wrong,
And his task was most ill done.
Turning a man to a furtive sneak,
Stealing by ways obscure,
Bad if you will was the old, old ill;
But worse by far was the cure.
Oh, man will sin as his fathers sinned
Since ever this world was made;
But, if he must sin, then let him sin
In the open, unafraid;
Foot on the old brass rail again
For all the world to see.
A jolly old lot who takes his tot
All unashamed and free.
Scheme | xAbAcdxd xexexfxf cgxgxhxh xixixAbA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110100101 110111 010111111 10101 10111111 100101 1011110111 1111111 11011101 011111 0101110111 110111 110110111 101001 11111110111 01111101 110101111 101111 111111111 0111111 100110101 101101 111110111 1111101 111111101 1101111 111111111 001001 11011101 110111 010111111 10101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,062 |
Words | 224 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 205 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 55 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:07 min read
- 52 Views
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"The Old Brass Rail" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6737/the-old-brass-rail>.
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