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
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James Henry Leigh Hunt

James Henry Leigh Hunt, best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer. more…

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