Analysis of The Women of the West
They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,
The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,
The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best:
For love they faced the wilderness -- the Women of the West.
The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away,
And the old-time joys and faces -- they were gone for many a day;
In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock chains,
O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains.
In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run,
In the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun,
In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man's unrest,
On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.
The red sun robs their beauty, and, in weariness and pain,
The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again;
And there are hours men cannot soothe, and words men cannot say --
The nearest woman's face may be a hundred miles away.
The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desires,
When the white stars in reverence light their holy altar fires,
And silence, like the touch of God, sinks deep into the breast --
Perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West.
For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet plies his arts --
They only hear the beating of their gallant, loving hearts.
But they have sung with silent lives the song all songs above --
The holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love.
Well have we held our father's creed. No call has passed us by.
We faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die.
And we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o'er all the rest,
The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West.
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEBB XXCC FFBB GGHH IIBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (86%) |
Metre | 11011100010101 01000101111101 01010100011101 11110100010101 01010101010101 0011101010111001 011010111010101 100010101010101 00111111110101 0010101101101 001110100011101 100110101010101 01111100010001 01110101110101 011101101011101 01010111010101 011101011100010 1011010011101010 01010111110101 0111001010101 11110101110111 11010101110101 11111101011101 0100110010011 111110101111111 110101001110111 011111010110101 01110100010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,728 |
Words | 321 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 48 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 191 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:37 min read
- 52 Views
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"The Women of the West" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/14994/the-women-of-the-west>.
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