Analysis of The Old Mile-Tree
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
OLD coach-road West by Nor’-ward—
Old mile-tree by the track:
A dead branch pointing forward,
And a dead branch pointing back.
And still in clear-cut romans
On his hard heart he tells
The miles that were to fortune,
The miles from Bowenfels.
Old chief of Western timber!
A famous gum you’ve been.
Old mile-tree, I remember
When all your boughs were green.
There came three boyish lovers
When golden days begun;
There rode three boyish rovers
Towards the setting sun.
And Fortune smiled her fairest
And Fate to these was kind—
The truest, best and rarest,
The girls they’d left behind.
By the camp-fire’s dying ember
They dreamed of love and gold;
Old mile-tree, I remember
When all our hearts were bold.
And when the wrecks of those days
Were sadly drifting back,
There came a lonely swagman
Along the dusty track;
And save for limbs that trembled—
For weak and ill was he—
Old mile-tree, he resembled
The youngest of the three.
Beneath you, dark and lonely,
A wronged and broken man
He crouched, and sobbed as only
The strong heart broken can.
The darkness wrapped the timber,
The stars seemed dark o’erhead—
Old mile-tree, I remember
When all green leaves seemed dead.
Scheme | abxbcxdcexEx fdfdxgxgehEh xbdbijijjkjkeaEx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (35%) |
Metre | 1111111 111101 0111010 0011101 0101110 111111 0110110 0111 1111010 010111 1111010 111101 1111010 110101 1111010 010101 0101010 011111 0101010 011101 101101010 111101 1111010 1110101 0101111 010101 110101 010101 0111110 110111 1111010 010101 0111010 010101 1101110 011101 0101010 01111 1111010 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,159 |
Words | 206 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 12, 16 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 307 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 68 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 84 Views
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"The Old Mile-Tree" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18056/the-old-mile-tree>.
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