Analysis of In Defence of the Bush
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
So you're back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went,
And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent;
Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear
That it wasn't cool and shady -- and there wasn't whips of beer,
And the looney bullock snorted when you first came into view --
Well, you know it's not so often that he sees a swell like you;
And the roads were hot and dusty, and the plains were burnt and brown,
And no doubt you're better suited drinking lemon-squash in town.
Yet, perchance, if you should journey down the very track you went
In a month or two at furthest, you would wonder what it meant;
Where the sunbaked earth was gasping like a creature in its pain
You would find the grasses waving like a field of summer grain,
And the miles of thirsty gutters, blocked with sand and choked with mud,
You would find them mighty rivers with a turbid, sweeping flood.
For the rain and drought and sunshine make no changes in the street,
In the sullen line of buildings and the ceaseless tramp of feet;
But the bush has moods and changes, as the seasons rise and fall,
And the men who know the bush-land -- they are loyal through it all.
*
But you found the bush was dismal and a land of no delight --
Did you chance to hear a chorus in the shearers' huts at night?
Did they 'rise up William Riley' by the camp-fire's cheery blaze?
Did they rise him as we rose him in the good old droving days?
And the women of the homesteads and the men you chanced to meet --
Were their faces sour and saddened like the 'faces in the street'?
And the 'shy selector children' -- were they better now or worse
Than the little city urchins who would greet you with a curse?
Is not such a life much better than the squalid street and square
Where the fallen women flaunt it in the fierce electric glare,
Wher the sempstress plies her needle till her eyes are sore and red
In a filthy, dirty attic toiling on for daily bread?
Did you hear no sweeter voices in the music of the bush
Than the roar of trams and buses, and the war-whoop of 'the push'?
Did the magpies rouse your slumbers with their carol sweet and strange?
Did you hear the silver chiming of the bell-birds on the range?
But, perchance, the wild birds' music by your senses was despised,
For you say you'll stay in townships till the bush is civilized.
Would you make it a tea-garden, and on Sundays have a band
Where the 'blokes' might take their 'donahs', with a 'public' close at hand?
You had better stick to Sydney and make merry with the 'push',
For the bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush.
Scheme | AAXXBBCCAADDEEFFGG HHIIFFJJKKLLMMNNOOPPMM |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111110101010111 011010100010001 11110110111111 111010100110111 001010101111011 111111101110111 001010100010101 011110101010101 101111101010111 001111101110111 10111101010011 111010101011101 001110101110111 11111010101101 10101011110001 001011100010111 101110101010101 001110111110111 1 111011100011101 11111010001111 1111101010110101 11111111001111 00101010011111 0110100101010001 0011100110111 101010101111101 111011101010101 101010110010101 10110101011101 001010101011101 111110100010101 101110100011101 1011111110101 11101011011101 101011101110101 11111010101110 11110110011101 10111111010111 111011100110101 101110110110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 2,678 |
Words | 497 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 19, 22 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 49 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,011 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 248 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:31 min read
- 156 Views
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