Analysis of To a Fish
James Henry Leigh Hunt 1784 (Southgate, London) – 1859
You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced,
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt-water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced,
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste;
And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,--
Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry,
Legless, unloving, infamously chaste:--
O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights,
What is't ye do? What life lead? eh, dull goggles?
How do ye vary your vile days and nights?
How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles
In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes, and bites,
And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles?
Scheme | ABXAABXA BCDBDC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101010101 101101101 101101 1101111111 0111000101 0111011101 11111111 10111 1110011101 111111111110 1111011101 111111111 0101111101 0101010110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 655 |
Words | 104 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 251 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 31 sec read
- 99 Views
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"To a Fish" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20129/to-a-fish>.
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