Analysis of A New John Bull
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
A tall, slight, English gentleman,
With an eyeglass to his eye;
He mostly says “Good-Bai” to you,
When he means to say “Good-bye”;
He shakes hands like a ladies’ man,
For all the world to see—
But they know, in Corners of the World.
No ladies’ man is he.
A tall, slight English gentleman,
Who hates to soil his hands;
He takes his mother’s drawing-room
To the most outlandish lands;
And when, through Hells we dream not of,
His battery prevails,
He cleans the grime of gunpowder
And blue blood from his nails.
He’s what our blokes in Egypt call
“A decent kinder cove.”
And if the Pyramids should fall?
He’d merely say “Bai Jove!”
And if the stones should block his path
For a twelve-month, or a day,
He’d call on Sergeant Whatsisname
To clear those things away!
A quiet English gentleman,
Who dots the Empire’s rim,
Where sweating sons of ebony
Would go to Hell for him.
And if he chances to get “winged,”
Or smashed up rather worse,
He’s quite apologetic to
The doctor and the nurse.
A silent English gentleman—
Though sometimes he says “Haw.”
But if a baboon in its cage
Appealed to British Law
And Justice, to be understood,
He’d listen all polite,
And do his very best to set
The monkey grievance right.
A thoroughbred whose ancestry
Goes back to ages dim;
Yet no one on his wide estates
Need fear to speak to him.
Although he never showed a sign
Of aught save sympathy,
He was the only gentleman
That shamed the cad in me.
Scheme | AbcbxdxdAefeghxh ixigxjfj akdkxlcl amxmxnxn dkxkxdad |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110100 111111 11011111 1111111 11110101 110111 111010101 110111 01110100 111111 11110101 1010101 01111111 110001 1101110 011111 111010101 010101 01010011 110111 01011111 1011101 111101 111101 01010100 1101001 11011100 111111 01110111 111101 1100101 010001 01010100 101111 11001011 011101 0101101 110101 01110111 010101 01011100 111101 11111101 111111 1110101 111100 11010100 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,439 |
Words | 269 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 220 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:20 min read
- 50 Views
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"A New John Bull" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17710/a-new-john-bull>.
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