Analysis of A Ballad On The Game Of Traffic
Jonathan Swift 1667 (Dublin) – 1745 (Ireland)
WRITTEN AT THE CASTLE OF DUBLIN, 1699
My Lord,to find out who must deal,
Delivers cards about,
But the first knave does seldom fail
To find the doctor out.
But then his honour cried, Gadzooks!
And seem'd to knit his brow:
For on a knave he never looks
But he thinks upon Jack How.
My lady, though she is no player,
Some bungling partner takes,
And, wedged in corner of a chair,
Takes snuff, and holds the stakes.
Dame Floydlooks out in grave suspense
For pair royals and sequents;
But, wisely cautious of her pence,
The castle seldom frequents.
Quoth Herries,fairly putting cases,
I'd won it, on my word,
If I had but a pair of aces,
And could pick up a third.
But Weston has a new-cast gown
On Sundays to be fine in,
And, if she can but win a crown,
'Twill just new dye the lining.
"With these is Parson Swift,
Not knowing how to spend his time,
Does make a wretched shift,
To deafen them with puns and rhyme."
Scheme | A XBXB CDCD XCXC CCCC CECE FAFX GHGH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101010110 1111111 010101 10111101 110101 111111 011111 11011101 1110111 110111110 1100101 01010101 110101 1110101 111001 11010101 0101010 111010 111111 111101110 011101 11010111 111110 01111101 1111010 111101 11011111 110101 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 909 |
Words | 184 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 87 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 24 Views
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"A Ballad On The Game Of Traffic" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55984/a-ballad-on-the-game-of-traffic>.
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