Analysis of How Polly Paid For Her Keep
Do I know Polly Brown? Do I know her? Why,
damme,
You might as well ask if I know my own name?
It's a wonder you never heard tell of old Sammy,
Her father, my mate in the Crackenback claim.
He asks if I know little Poll! Why, I nursed her
As often, I reckon as old Mother Brown
When they lived at the “Flats,” and old Sam
went a burster
In Chinaman's Gully, and dropped every crown.
My golden-haired mate, ever brimful of folly
And childish conceit, and yet ready to rest
Contented beside me, 'twas I who taught Polly
To handle four horses along with the best.
"Twas funny to hear the small fairy discoursing
Of horses and drivers! I'll swear that she knew
Every one of the nags that I drove to the “Crossing,”
Their vices, and paces, and pedigrees too.
She got a strange whim in her golden-haired noodle
That a driver's high seat was a kind of a throne,
I've taken her up there before she could toddle,
And she'd talk to the nags in a tongue of her own.
Then old Mother Brown got the horrors around her:
(I think it was pineapple-rum drove her daft)
She cleared out one night, and the next morning they
found her,
A mummified mass, in a forty foot shaft.
And Sammy? Well, Sammy was wailing and weeping,
And raving, and raising the devil's own row;
He was only too glad to give into our keeping
His motherless babe - we'd have kept her till now
But Jimmy Maloney thought proper to court her,
Among all the lasses he loved but this one:
She's no longer Polly, our golden-haired daughter,
She's Mrs Maloney, of Paddlesack Run.
Our little girl Polly's no end of a swell (you
Must know Jimmy shears fifty thousand odd sheep) -
But I'm clean off the track, I was going to tell you
The way in which Polly paid us for her keep.
It was this way: My wife's living in Tumbarumba,
And I'm down at Germanton yards, for a sale,
Inspecting coach-horses (I wanted a number),
When they flashed down a message that made me
turn pale.
"Twas from Polly, to say the old wife had fallen
Down-stairs, and in falling had fractured a bone -
There was no doctor nearer than Tumut to call on,
So she and the blacksmith had set it alone.
They'd have to come down by the coach in the
morning,
As one of the two buggy ponies was lame,
Would I see the old doctor, and give him fair warning
To keep himself decently straight till they came?
I was making good money those times, and a fiver
Per week was the wages my deputy got,
A good, honest worker, and out-and-out driver,
But, like all the rest, a most terrible sot.
So, just on this morning - which made it more sinful,
With my women on board, the unprincipled skunk
Hung round all the bars till he loaded a skinful
Of grog, and then started his journey, dead drunk.
Drunk! with my loved ones on board, drunk as Chloe,
He might have got right by the end of the trip
Had he rested contented and quiet, but no, he
Must pull up at Rosewood, for one other nip.
That finished him off, quick, and there he sat, dozing
Like an owl on his perch, half-awake, half-asleep.
Till a lurch of the coach came, when, suddenly losing
His balance, he fell to the earth all of a heap,
While the coach, with its four frightened horses,
went sailing
Downhill to perdition and Carabost “break,”
Four galloping devils, with reins loosely trailing,
And passengers falling all roads in their wake.
Two bagmen, who sat on the box, jumped together
And found a soft bed in the mud of the drain;
The barmaid from Murphy's fell light as a feather -
I think she got off with a bit of a sprain;
While the jock, with his nerves most decidedly
shaken,
Made straight for the door, never wasting his
breath
In farewell apologies; basely forsaken,
My wife and Poll Brown sat alone with grim
Death.
While the coach thundered downward, my wife fell
a-praying;
But Poll in a fix, now, is dashed hard to beat:
She picked up her skirts, scrambled over the swaying
High roof of the coach, till she lit on the seat,
And there looked around. In her hand was a pretty,
Frail
Scheme | XABCB DEADE CFCF GHGH IJIJ DKXDK GXGX DLDL HMHM ANDCN LJXJ XGBGB DXDX IGIG COCO GMGM XGGGG DPDP CLXQLXQ XGRGR CN |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110111101 1 11111111111 1010110111110 010110011 111111011110 11011011101 111101011 101 0110011001 11011101110 01001011011 010011111110 11011001101 1101101101 11001011111 10011011111010 11001001001 110110010110 101011101101 110011011110 011101001101 111011010010 1111101101 11111001101 10 0101001011 010110110010 01001001011 11101111011010 11001111011 110010110110 0110111111 1110101010110 110010111 1010110111011 11101101011 1111011110111 01011011101 1111111001 011111101 010110110010 1111010111 11 111011011110 11001011001 111101011111 1100111101 1111110100 10 11101101011 1110110011110 11011001111 111011011001 11101011001 011010010110 11101011001 111110111110 111011001001 11101111001 11011011011 11111111110 11111101101 1110010010111 1111111101 110111011110 111111101101 1011011110010 110111011101 1011111010 110 1111011 110010111010 01001011011 11111011010 01011001101 01110111010 11111101101 1011111100 10 1110110101 1 0101001010 1101110111 1 1011010111 010 11001111111 111011010010 11101111101 011010011010 1 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,096 |
Words | 750 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 21 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 7, 5, 2 |
Lines Amount | 92 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 145 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:50 min read
- 38 Views
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"How Polly Paid For Her Keep" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4186/how-polly-paid-for-her-keep>.
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