Analysis of Perch Fishing
Edmund Blunden 1896 (London) – 1974 (Long Melford)
On the far hill the cloud of thunder grew
And sunlight blurred below; but sultry blue
Burned yet on the valley water where it hoards
Behind the miller's elmen floodgate boards,
And there the wasps, that lodge them ill-concealed
In the vole's empty house, still drove afield
To plunder touchwood from old crippled trees
And build their young ones their hutched nurseries;
Still creaked the grasshoppers' rasping unison
Nor had the whisper through the tansies run
Nor weather-wisest bird gone home.
How then
Should wry eels in the pebbled shallows ken
Lightning coming? troubled up they stole
To the deep-shadowed sullen water-hole,
Among whose warty snags the quaint perch lair.
As cunning stole the boy to angle there,
Muffling least tread, with no noise balancing through
The hangdog alder-boughs his bright bamboo.
Down plumbed the shuttled ledger, and the quill
On the quicksilver water lay dead still.
A sharp snatch, swirling to-fro of the line,
He's lost, he's won, with splash and scuffling shine
Past the low-lapping brandy-flowers drawn in,
The ogling hunchback perch with needled fin.
And there beside him one as large as he,
Following his hooked mate, careless who shall see
Or what befall him, close and closer yet —
The startled boy might take him in his net
That folds the other.
Slow, while on the clay,
The other flounces, slow he sinks away.
What agony usurps that watery brain
For comradeship of twenty summers slain,
For such delights below the flashing weir
And up the sluice-cut, playing buccaneer
Among the minnows; lolling in hot sun
When bathing vagabonds had drest and done;
Rootling in salty flannel-weed for meal
And river shrimps, when hushed the trundling wheel;
Snapping the dapping moth, and with new wonder
Prowling through old drowned barges falling asunder.
And O a thousand things the whole year through
They did together, never more to do.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEXFFGGHHAAII JJKKLLMMNOOPPQQEERRNNAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011011101 011011101 11101010111 01010111 0101111101 0011011101 110111101 0111111100 110101100 110101011 11010111 11 11100111 101010111 1011010101 011110111 1101011101 10111111001 011011101 1101010001 1011010111 0111011101 11111101001 10110101010 01111101 0101111111 10011110111 1101110101 0101111011 11010 11101 0101011101 1100111001 11110101 1101010101 010111001 0101010011 1101001101 101010111 010111011 1001101110 101111010010 0101010111 1101010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,842 |
Words | 314 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 21, 23 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 755 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 156 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 99 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Perch Fishing" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9123/perch-fishing>.
Discuss this Edmund Blunden poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In