Analysis of Judge Selah Lively
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
Suppose you stood just five feet two,
And had worked your way as a grocery clerk,
Studying law by candle light
Until you became an attorney at law?
And then suppose through your diligence,
And regular church attendance,
You became attorney for Thomas Rhodes,
Collecting notes and mortgages,
And representing all the widows
In the Probate Court? And through it all
They jeered at your size, and laughed at your clothes
And your polished boots? And then suppose
You became the County Judge?
And Jefferson Howard and Kinsey Keene,
And Harmon Whitney, and all the giants
Who had sneered at you, were forced to stand
Before the bar and say "Your Honor" --
Well, don't you think it was natural
That I made it hard for them?
Scheme | ABCDEEFGHIJHKLMNOPQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111111 01111101001 10011101 01101101011 010111100 01001010 1010101101 01010100 00101010 00110111 1111101111 011010101 1010101 0100100101 0101001010 111110111 010101110 111111100 1111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 707 |
Words | 129 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 19 |
Lines Amount | 19 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 570 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 127 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 39 sec read
- 69 Views
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"Judge Selah Lively" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8637/judge-selah-lively>.
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