Analysis of This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong
Edward Thomas 1878 (London Borough of Lambeth) – 1917 (Pas-de-Calais)
This is no case of petty right or wrong
That politicians or philosophers
Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
Beside my hate for one fat patriot
My hatred of the Kaiser is love true:-
A kind of god he is, banging a gong.
But I have not to choose between the two,
Or between justice and injustice. Dinned
With war and argument I read no more
Than in the storm smoking along the wind
Athwart the wood. Two witches' cauldrons roar.
From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;
Out of the other an England beautiful
And like her mother that died yesterday.
Little I know or care if, being dull,
I shall miss something that historians
Can rake out of the ashes when perchance
The phoenix broods serene above their ken.
But with the best and meanest Englishmen
I am one in crying, God save England, lest
We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.
The ages made her that made us from dust:
She is all we know and live by, and we trust
She is good and must endure, loving her so:
And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.
Scheme | ABCBDEAECFGFHIHIJKLMNNOOPP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110111 101010100 1111110111 111101110 0111111100 1101010111 0111111001 1111110101 1011000101 1101001111 1001100101 010111011 1101011101 11010110100 010101110 1011111101 1111010100 1111010101 0101010111 110101010 11101011101 1111010101 0101011111 11111011011 11101011001 01110011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,055 |
Words | 208 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 26 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 842 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 205 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 03, 2023
- 1:02 min read
- 123 Views
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