Analysis of Alf’s Ninth Bit
Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
The midnight activities of Whats-his Name,
Scarcely a general now known to fame
Can tell you of that famous day and year.
When feeble Mr. Asquith, getting old,
The destinies of England were almost sold
To a Welsh shifter with an ogling eye,
And Whats-his-name attained nobility.
The Dashing Rupert of the pulping trade,
Rough from the virgin forests inviolate,
Thus rose in Albion, and tickled the State
And where he once set foot, right there he stayed.
Old 'Erb was doting, so the rumour ran,
Ahd Rupert ran the rumour round in wheels,
And David's harp let out heart-rending squeals:
'Find us a harpist ! ! DAVID is the man!!'
Dave was the man to sell the shot and shell,
And Basil was the Greek that rode around
On sea and land, with all convenience found
To sell, to sell, to sell, that's it, to SELL
Destroyers, bombs and spitting mitrailleuses.
He used to lunch with Balfour in those days
And if the papers seldom sang his praise,
The simple Britons never knew he was,
Until a narsty German told them so.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of things that happened very long ago,
And scarcely heed one word of what you hear.
Bury it all, bury it all well deep,
And let the blighters start it all over again.
They'll trick you again and again, as you sleep;
But you shall know that these were the men,
Scheme | Abbx ccxx dxxd effe ghhg fiix jAja klkl |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (63%) |
Metre | 101100111 0101001011 1001001111 1111110101 1101010101 0100110011 101101111 0011010100 0101010101 11010100100 11010001001 0111111111 111101001 110100101 0101111101 1101010101 1101110101 0101011101 1101110101 1111111111 01010101 1111110011 0101010111 0101010111 010110111 101100111 1111010101 0101111111 1011101111 01011111001 11101001111 111111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,327 |
Words | 249 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 131 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:15 min read
- 81 Views
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"Alf’s Ninth Bit" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13181/alf%E2%80%99s-ninth-bit>.
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