Analysis of Butch Weldy
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still and seemed to heave,
And I shot up as the tank exploded,
And down I came with both legs broken,
And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs.
For someone left a blow-fire going,
And something sucked the flame in the tank.
The Circuit Judge said whoever did it
Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so
Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me.
And I sat on the witness stand as blind
As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over,
"l didn't know him at all."
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMINGOPQRS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110100101 1110100101 0100101111 01001110 110110001 11010010 0110010010111 100101101 110111110 01110111 0111101010 011111110 01111101011 111011010 010101001 0101101011 1010101101 111101111 0111010111 1101001010010 1101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 783 |
Words | 160 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 21 |
Lines Amount | 21 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 613 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 157 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 102 Views
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