Analysis of A Tale Of The Airly Days
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Oh! tell me a tale of the airly days--
Of the times as they ust to be;
'Piller of Fi-er' and 'Shakespeare's Plays'
Is a' most too deep fer me!
I want plane facts, and I want plane words,
Of the good old-fashioned ways,
When speech run free as the songs of birds
'Way back in the airly days.
Tell me a tale of the timber-lands--
Of the old-time pioneers;
Somepin' a pore man understands
With his feelins's well as ears.
Tell of the old log house,--about
The loft, and the puncheon flore--
The old fi-er-place, with the crane swung out,
And the latch-string thrugh the door.
Tell of the things jest as they was--
They don't need no excuse!--
Don't tech 'em up like the poets does,
Tel theyr all too fine fer use!--
Say they was 'leven in the fambily--
Two beds, and the chist, below,
And the trundle-beds that each helt three,
And the clock and the old bureau.
Then blow the horn at the old back-door
Tel the echoes all halloo,
And the childern gethers home onc't more,
Jest as they ust to do:
Blow fer Pap tel he hears and comes,
With Tomps and Elias, too,
A-marchin' home, with the fife and drums
And the old Red White and Blue!
Blow and blow tel the sound draps low
As the moan of the whipperwill,
And wake up Mother, and Ruth and Jo,
All sleepin' at Bethel Hill:
Blow and call tel the faces all
Shine out in the back-log's blaze,
And the shadders dance on the old hewed wall
As they did in the airly days.
Scheme | ABABCACA DEDEFGFG XHXHIIBJ GIGKLKLI IIJIIAIA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) |
Metre | 111011011 10111111 10110011 1011111 111101111 1011101 111110111 110011 110110101 101101 101101 111111 11011101 010011 0110110111 0011101 11011111 111101 111110101 1111111 11110001 1100101 001011111 00100110 110110111 101011 00110111 111111 11111101 1100101 01110101 0011101 10110111 101101 011100101 111101 10110101 1100111 001110111 1110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,376 |
Words | 276 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 211 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 08, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 95 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"A Tale Of The Airly Days" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20807/a-tale-of-the-airly-days>.
Discuss this James Whitcomb Riley poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In