Analysis of To Show What a Man Can Do
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
There has been many a grander deed since man had life to give,
And thousands have gone to certain death, eyes open, that men might live;
And many have gone for their country’s sake, when their numbers were all too few,
And bravely died that their mates may die—to show what a man can do.
Now this is the song of La Bella wreck at the harbour of Warnambool,
And this is the song of a brave, brave man of the grand old simple school:
We all know the forces of circumstance, and we blame not the lifeboat crew—
But this is the song of a fisherman who showed what a man can do.
With a single scull in his strong young hands, and his brave young eyes aglow,
He shot his skill o’er the raging hell, where the lifeboat dared not go!
It was twice and thrice that he went again, and the lives they were only two—
But this is the song of The Man Who Knows, and can show what a man can do.
And we need such deeds in this world of ours, lest the hearts of men might fail—
Oh we need such deeds in this world of ours, and a man to tell the tale!
When the eloquent gestures come from the wreck, and never a word comes through—
Oh, we need such deeds in our land to-day to show what a man can do!
And this is the moral of all that is,
And it’s only known to two
Put out in your dinghy with confidence,
To show what a man can do.
Scheme | XXAA BBAA BXAA BBAA XAXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (80%) |
Metre | 111100101111111 0101111011101111 01011111111100111 0101111111110111 1110111101101011 01101101111011101 1110101100111011 1110110101110111 10101011110111101 111110101101111 111011110100110101 111011011101110111 011110111101011111 111110111100011101 101001011010100111 111110101111110111 0110101111 0110111 1101101100 1110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 1,318 |
Words | 272 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 50 |
Words per line (avg) | 14 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 201 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 59 Views
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"To Show What a Man Can Do" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18159/to-show-what-a-man-can-do>.
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