Analysis of The Wantaritencant
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
It watched me in the cradle laid, and from my boyhood’s home
It glared above my shoulder-blade when I wrote my first “pome”;
It’s sidled by me ever since, with greeny eyes aslant—
It is the thing (O, Priest and Prince!) that wants to write, but can’t.
It yells and slobbers, mows and whines, It follows everywhere;
’Tis gloating on these very lines with red and baleful glare.
It murders friendship, love and truth (It makes the “reader” pant),
It ruins editorial youth, the Wantaritencant.
Its slime is ever on my work, and ever on my name;
No toil nor trouble does It shirk—for It will write, all the same!
It tantalized when great thoughts burned, in trouble and in want;
It makes it hell for all concerned, the Wantaritencant.
And now that I would gladly die, or rest my weary mind,
I cannot rest to think that I must leave the Thing behind.
Its green rot damns the dead, for sure—that greatest curse extant,
’Twill kill Australian literature, the Wantaritencant!
You cannot kill or keep It still, or ease It off a bit;
It talks about Itself until the world believes in It.
It is a Scare, a Fright, a Ghast, a Gibber, and a Rant,
A future Horror and a Past, the Wantaritencant!
Scheme | AABB CCBB DDBB BBBB BBBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (60%) |
Metre | 1110010101111 11011101111111 110111011111 11011101111111 110110111010 11011101110101 11010101110101 1100100101 11110111010111 111101111111101 1101111010001 1111110101 01111101111101 11011111110101 11110111110110 11010100001 11011111111101 11010101010101 1101010101001 0101000101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,194 |
Words | 218 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 46 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 75 Views
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"The Wantaritencant" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18134/the-wantaritencant>.
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