Analysis of A Voice from the Town
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
I thought, in the days of the droving,
Of steps I might hope to retrace,
To be done with the bush and the roving
And settle once more in my place.
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,
In the long, lonely rides on the plain,
I thought of the pleasure of taking
The hand of a lady again.
I am back into civilization,
Once more in the stir and the strife,
But the old joys have lost their sensation --
The light has gone out of my life;
The men of my time they have married,
Made fortunes or gone to the wall;
Too long from the scene I have tarried,
And somehow, I'm out of it all.
For I go to the balls and the races
A lonely companionless elf,
And the ladies bestow all their graces
On others less grey than myself;
While the talk goes around I'm a dumb one
'Midst youngsters that chatter and prate,
And they call me "The Man who was Someone
Way back in the year Sixty-eight."
And I look, sour and old, at the dancers
That swing to the strains of the band,
And the ladies all give me the Lancers,
No waltzes -- I quite understand.
For matrons intent upon matching
Their daughters with infinite push,
Would scarce think him worthy the catching,
The broken-down man from the bush.
New partners have come and new faces,
And I, of the bygone brigade,
Sharply feel that oblivion my place is --
I must lie with the rest in the shade.
And the youngsters, fresh-featured and pleasant,
They live as we lived -- fairly fast;
But I doubt if the men of the present
Are as good as the men of the past.
Of excitement and praise they are chary,
There is nothing much good upon earth;
Their watchword is nil admirari,
They are bored from the days of their birth.
Where the life that we led was a revel
They "wince and relent and refrain" --
I could show them the road -- to the devil,
Were I only a youngster again.
I could show them the road where the stumps are,
The pleasures that end in remorse,
And the game where the Devil's three trumps are
The woman, the card, and the horse.
Shall the blind lead the blind -- shall the sower
Of wind read the storm as of yore?
Though they get to their goal somewhat slower,
They march where we hurried before.
For the world never learns -- just as we did
They gallantly go to their fate,
Unheeded all warnings, unheeded
The maxims of elders sedate.
As the husbandman, patiently toiling,
Draws a harvest each year from the soil,
So the fools grow afresh for the spoiling,
And a new crop of thieves for the spoil.
But a truce to this dull moralizing,
Let them drink while the drops are of gold.
I have tasted the dregs -- 'twere surprising
Were the new wine to me like the old;
And I weary for lack of employment
In idleness day after day,
For the key to the door of enjoyment
Is Youth -- and I've thrown it away.
Scheme | ABABACADEFEFGHGH IJKJEGEL MNMNAOAOIPKPQRQR STSTUCUD VWVWXYXY ZLZLA1 A1 A2 A2 Q3 Q3 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11001101 11111101 1111010010 01011011 1011111110 001101101 111010110 01101001 111010010 11001001 1011111010 01111111 011111110 11011101 11101111 0111111 1111010010 01011 0010011110 1101111 1011011011 11011001 011101111 11001101 01110011010 11101101 0010111010 1101101 110010110 11011001 111110010 01011101 110110110 0110101 10110100111 111101001 0010110010 11111101 1111011010 111101101 1010011110 111011011 11111 111101111 1011111010 11001001 1111011010 011001001 1111011011 01011001 0011010111 01001001 1011011010 11101111 1111111110 11111001 1011011111 11001111 010110010 01011001 10110010 101011101 1011011010 001111101 101111100 111101111 1110011010 001111101 0110111010 01001101 1011011010 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,752 |
Words | 536 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 8, 16, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 72 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 302 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 76 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:41 min read
- 94 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"A Voice from the Town" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2478/a-voice-from-the-town>.
Discuss this Andrew Barton Paterson poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In