Analysis of The Lament of the Border Cattle Thief
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
O woe is me for the merry life
I led beyond the Bar,
And a treble woe for my winsome wife
That weeps at Shalimar.
They have taken away my long jezail,
My shield and sabre fine,
And heaved me into the Central jail
For lifting of the kine.
The steer may low within the byre,
The Jat may tend his grain,
But there'll be neither loot nor fire
Till I come back again.
And God have mercy on the Jat
When once my fetters fall,
And Heaven defend the farmer's hut
When I am loosed from thrall.
It's woe to bend the stubborn back
Above the grinching quern,
It's woe to hear the leg-bar clack
And jingle when I turn!
But for the sorrow and the shame,
The brand on me and mine,
I'll pay you back in leaping flame
And loss of the butchered kine.
For every cow I spared before
In charity set free,
If I may reach my hold once more
I'll reive an honest three.
For every time I raised the low
That scared the dusty plain,
By sword and cord, by torch and tow
I'll light the land with twain!
Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai,
Young ~Sahib~ with the yellow hair --
Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie,
Fat herds below Bonair!
The one I'll shoot at twilight-tide,
At dawn I'll drive the other;
The black shall mourn for hoof and hide,
The white man for his brother.
'Tis war, red war, I'll give you then,
War till my sinews fail;
For the wrong you have done to a chief of men,
And a thief of the Zukka Kheyl.
And if I fall to your hand afresh
I give you leave for the sin,
That you cram my throat with the foul pig's flesh,
And swing me in the skin!
Scheme | ABAB CDCD BEFG HCHC IDIX JDJD KLKL CEHE XXCB HFHF GCGC MNMN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (92%) |
Metre | 111110101 110101 0010111101 1111 111001111 110101 011010101 110101 01110101 011111 1101101110 111101 01110101 111101 010010101 111111 11110101 01011 11110111 010111 11010001 011101 11110101 0110101 110011101 010011 11111111 111101 110011101 110101 11011101 110111 111111 1110101 1111111 11011 0111111 1111010 01111101 0111110 11111111 11111 10111110111 0011011 011111101 1111101 1111110111 011001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,525 |
Words | 310 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 97 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:36 min read
- 174 Views
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