Analysis of My Wife’s Second Husband
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
THE WORLD goes round, old fellow,
And still I’m in the swim,
While my wife’s second husband
Is growing old and grim.
I meet him in the city—
It all seems very tame—
He glances at me sometimes
As if I were to blame.
Oh, my wife’s second husband
Was handsome, young and true;
He had his boyish visions
(I had my visions too).
He made a model lover—
The greenest in the game—
They say, when I was married
That I was just the same.
Though I am ten years older
My hair is dark to-day,
While my wife’s second husband
Is quickly growing grey.
I drank when first he knew me,
And he drank not at all;
I see that he, through drinking,
Is going to the wall.
A sweet ill-treated woman,
A drunken brute (Good Lord!)—
Ah, well, she got her freedom,
And he got his reward.
He’ll fight it out a season,
For Fate will not be forced,
But my wife’s second husband
Shall surely be divorced.
I sympathize, and wonder
What mutual friends would think
If my wife’s second husband
And I should have a drink.
And I a mere bystander—
It almost seems absurd—
Might lay prophetically
My hand on my wife’s third.
But my wife’s second husband
His sorrows shall forget,
We’ll clasp warm hands in friendship
And clink our glasses yet.
We’ll smoke cigars together,
In pure philosophy,
While calmly contemplating
The fate of number three.
Scheme | abCbdexe cfxfgexe ghChdiji klxlkmCm gncngoao Cpxpgdjd |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111110 011001 1111010 110101 1110010 111101 1101101 111011 1111010 110101 1111010 111101 1101010 010001 1111110 111101 1111110 111111 1111010 110101 1111111 011111 1111110 110101 0111010 010111 1111010 011101 1111010 111111 1111010 110101 110010 1100111 1111010 011101 010110 11101 111 111111 1111010 110101 1111010 0110101 1101010 010100 110100 011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,300 |
Words | 247 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 167 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 41 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 56 Views
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"My Wife’s Second Husband" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17860/my-wife%E2%80%99s-second-husband>.
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