Analysis of They Sit on my Shoulders
James Vincient Johnson 1952 (Algoma WV)
They Sit on my Shoulders
An Angel sits upon my left shoulder
Another Angel sits on my right shoulder
One is a devil and the other a saint
Throughout life, I carry these boulders
One will tell you to stray this way
The other will tell you not to obey
The one that can’t keep stride
Is the one that shows no pride
One will tell you to always do wrong
The other is always wise to the song
This one keeps me out of trouble
And is the one that deserves a double
So, I walk with the one on my right
A true path to a brighter light
With my faith and right-hand
I’ll always brush off what is left
| Scheme | A BBXA CCDD EEFF GGXX |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 111110 1101011110 01010111110 11010001001 011110110 11111111 0101111101 011111 1011111 11111111 010111101 11111110 0101101010 111101111 01110101 111011 1111111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 598 |
| Words | 127 |
| Sentences | 1 |
| Stanzas | 5 |
| Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
| Lines Amount | 17 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
| Words per line (avg) | 7 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 92 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
About this poem
You're responsible for right or wrong. There's no in between, you are either right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad.
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"They Sit on my Shoulders" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/178591/they-sit-on-my-shoulders>.
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