Analysis of O’Grady’s Little Girl
Alice Guerin Crist 1876 (Clare Castle) – 1941 (Toowoomba)
Her hair was dark and curly, floatin’ to the saddle bow,
Her laugh was frank and girlish, and her voice was sweet and low;
When I was one-and-twenty, sure my heart was in a whirl,
Ridin’ neath the blossomed gum-trees with O’Grady’s little girl.
And ah! The dear grey eyes of her all truth and purity
What a beacon-light to goodness, such a colleen’s eyes can be!
The blazed a track to Heaven for me an’ it struck me like a blow
When O’Grady left the township, just twenty years ago.
In those years I’ve grown and prospered-sure the township’s half me own-
But my heart’s been empty-aching-since she left me all alone.
Now we’ve got a “Back-to-She-Oak’ week, celebratin’ royally,
And Nora’s coming home again, to join the revelry.
I’ll know her by here wild-rose face, her floatin’ curling hair,
By the neat black skirt and frilly blouse she always loved to wear,
I’ve never looked at wimmin since, but at the township ball
I’ll tell her all my faithful love-my hopes, and dreams and all.
Oh! the band is playing gaily, but alone I sit apart,
Watching all the merry dancers, with a sore and aching heart;
Gaily old friends greet each other, but my head is in a whirl,
As I watcher her twirling past me-Dan O’Grady’s little girl.
She’s grown stout-she’s got a shingle-and her skirt’s just on her knee
Sure the girl that I remember’s not the girl she used to be,
And the merry lilting music ringing out into the night,
Seems to mock my dying fancies and my dream of lost delight.
Now the band is playing softly-‘tis the waltz we used to know,
And I’ll have to ask her for it, for the sake of long ago,
But ah! The dear grey eyes of her, uplifted now to me,
And the unchanged heart beneath them, full of truth and purity.
‘Tis a woman’s heart that matters, fashions come and fashions go,
And what signifies a shingle, for a shingle sure can grow,
All my lonely years are over, I’m as happy as an earl,
Looking forward to the future with O’Grady’s little girl.
Scheme | XABB CCAA DDCC EEFF GGBB CCHH AACC AABB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (88%) |
Metre | 0111010110101 01110100011101 11110101111001 110101111101 01011110110100 10101110101111 0101110111111101 10101010110101 011110101010111 111110101111101 1110111111100 0110101110100 1101111101101 10111010111111 1101111110101 11011101110101 101110101011101 101010101010101 101111101111001 11100101111101 111110100011101 101110101011111 00101101010101 111110100111101 101110101011111 011110111011101 11011110100111 000110111110100 10111101010101 01100101010111 111011101110111 1010101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,996 |
Words | 363 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 47 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 187 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:49 min read
- 112 Views
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"O’Grady’s Little Girl" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1514/o%E2%80%99grady%E2%80%99s-little-girl>.
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