The Donkey
When fishes flew and forests walkedAnd figs grew upon thorn,Some moment when the moon was bloodThen surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cryAnd ears like errant wings,The devil's walking parodyOn all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,Of ancient crooked will;Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;One far fierce hour and sweet:There was a shout about my ears,And palms before my feet.
Words in this poem
- sickening a.
- Causing sickness; specif., causing surfeit or disgust; nauseating.
- errant n.
- One who wanders about. Fuller.
- scourge n.
- A lash; a strap or cord; especially, a lash used to inflict pain or punishment; an instrument of punishment or discipline; a whip. [F. escourgée, fr. L. excoriata (sc. scutica) a stripped off (lash or whip), fr. excoriate to strip, to skin. See Excoriate.]
- deride v. t.
- To laugh at with contempt; to laugh to scorn; to turn to ridicule or make sport of; to mock; to scoff at. [L. deridere, derisum; de- + rid to laugh. See Ridicule.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Donkey is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wild Knight and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #12037; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: G. K. Chesterton, The Donkey, in The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12037, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/chesterton-wild-knight/the-donkey.html, id L17124.
Form and metre
The Donkey is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A walked · thornA · blood · bornA
- 2 -A-A cry · wingsA · parody · thingsA
- 3 -A-A earth · willA · dumb · stillA
- 4 -A-A hour · sweetA · ears · feetA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When fishes flew and forests walked | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And figs grew upon thorn, | 6 | ······ |
| Some moment when the moon was blood | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Then surely I was born; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| With monstrous head and sickening cry | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘· |
| And ears like errant wings, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The devil's walking parody | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘˘ |
| On all four-footed things. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The tattered outlaw of the earth, | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| Of ancient crooked will; | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| I keep my secret still. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Fools! For I also had my hour; | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| One far fierce hour and sweet: | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| There was a shout about my ears, | 8 | ········ |
| And palms before my feet. | 6 | ······ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.