Analysis of Been There Before
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
There came a stranger to Walgett town,
To Walgett town when the sun was low,
And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown,
Yet how to quench it he did not know;
But he thought he might take those yokels down,
The guileless yokels of Walgett town.
They made him a bet in a private bar,
In a private bar when the talk was high,
And they bet him some pounds no matter how far
He could pelt a stone, yet he could not shy
A stone right over the river so brown,
The Darling River at Walgett town.
He knew that the river from bank to bank
Was fifty yards, and he smiled a smile
As he trundled down; but his hopes they sank,
For there wasn’t a stone within fifty mile;
For the saltbush plain and the open down
Produce no quarries in Walgett town.
The yokels laughed at his hopes o’erthrown,
And he stood awhile like a man in a dream;
Then out of his pocket he fetched a stone,
And pelted it over the silent stream –
He’d been there before; he had wandered down
On a previous visit to Walgett town.
Scheme | ABABAACDCDAA EFEFAA AGXGAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111 11110111 01100111101 111111111 111111111 0101111 1110100101 0010110111 01111111011 1110111111 0111001011 01010111 1110101111 110101101 1110111111 1110101101 101100101 01110011 0111111 01101101001 1111101101 0101100101 1110111101 1010010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,007 |
Words | 200 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 256 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 66 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 99 Views
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"Been There Before" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2492/been-there-before>.
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