Analysis of The Horse and Cart Ferry
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
It was old Jerry Brown,
Who’d an office in town,
And he used to get jocular, very;
And he’d go to the Shore
When they’d serve him no more,
And, of course, by the passenger ferry,
A sight on the passenger ferry.
Now this is a song of the ferry,
And a lay of the juice of the berry;
’Tis the ballad of Brown,
Who’d a business in town,
And commenced to go down
Very slow,
Don’t you know?
By coming home just a bit merry.
By the Drunks’ Boat—that’s right—
On a Saturday night
He would often be past being merry;
With his back teeth afloat,
On the twelve o’clock boat,
And a spectacle there on the ferry
(A picture to all on the ferry).
In the mornings, ashamed—
’Twas the last drink he blamed,
Though the first was the matter with Jerry,
With his nerve out of joint,
He’d sneak down to Blue’s Point,
And he’d cross by the horse-and-cart ferry,
Like a thief—by the horse-and-cart ferry.
But long before night
He’d most likely be tight,
And a subject and theme for George Perry;
And he’d cross to the Shore,
Somewhat worse than before,
And a nuisance to all on the ferry;
Singing-drunk on the passenger ferry.
And so it went on
Till his reason seemed gone,
And the Law, so it seemed, got a derry
On Brown. He went down,
And they sent him to town
One day, by “the trap,” on the ferry—
The Government trap on the ferry.
He was sober and sane
When he came back again,
And the past he’d determined to bury—
Or, I mean, live it down—
And he crossed from the town
Like a man, on the passenger ferry.
(There were sceptical souls on that ferry.)
They say ’twas the jaw
Of his mother-in-law
Drove him back to the juice of the berry;
But he soon got afloat
On the passenger boat
Or adrift on the horse-and-cart ferry
(Wrongly called the ve-hic-ular ferry).
The drink had him fast,
And he drank till at last
He dried up—a withered old cherry;
And they thought him no loss
When they sent him across
In a box, on the cart-and-horse ferry—
In a low, covered trap on the ferry.
Which I rise to explain—
If the moral ain’t plain,
And if you’re a cove that gets merry—
Always stick, when “afloat,”
To the passenger boat;
Or else to the cart-and-horse ferry,
Or you’ll make matters worse, like old Jerry.
But this is the song of the ferry,
And the lay of the juice of the berry;
And you will not deny—
If you read by-and-bye—
That the casual eye
Of the Tight
At first sight
Misses much in the song of the ferry.
Scheme | AABCCBBBBAAADDB EEBFFBB GGBHHBB EEBCCBB XXBAABB IXBAABB JJBFFBB KKBLLBB IIBFFBB BBMMMEEB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101 111001 0111110010 011101 111111 0111010010 011010010 111011010 0011011010 101011 101001 001111 101 111 110110110 101111 101001 1110111010 111101 10111 0010011010 010111010 001001 101111 1011010110 111111 111111 0111010110 1011010110 11011 111011 0001011110 011101 111101 0010111010 1011010010 01111 111011 0011111010 11111 011111 111011010 010011010 111001 111101 0011010110 111111 011101 1011010010 10111110 11101 111001 1111011010 111101 101001 1011010110 101011110 01111 011111 111010110 011111 111101 0011010110 0011011010 111101 101011 011011110 11101 101001 111010110 1111011110 111011010 0011011010 011101 111101 101001 101 111 1010011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,401 |
Words | 465 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8 |
Lines Amount | 79 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 180 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 2:19 min read
- 83 Views
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"The Horse and Cart Ferry" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18014/the-horse-and-cart-ferry>.
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