Analysis of Hay and Hell and Booligal
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
"You come and see me, boys," he said;
"You'll find a welcome and a bed
And whisky any time you call;
Although our township hasn't got
The name of quite a lively spot --
You see, I live in Booligal.
"And people have an awful down
Upon the district and the town --
Which worse than hell itself the call;
In fact, the saying far and wide
Along the Riverina side
Is 'Hay and Hell and Booligal'.
"No doubt it suits 'em very well
To say its worse than Hay or Hell,
But don't you heed their talk at all;
Of course, there's heat -- no one denies --
And sand and dust and stacks of flies,
And rabbits, too, at Booligal.
"But such a pleasant, quiet place --
You never see a stranger's face;
They hardly ever care to call;
The drovers mostly pass it by --
They reckon that they'd rather die
Than spend the night in Booligal.
"The big mosquitoes frighten some --
You'll lie awake to hear 'em hum --
And snakes about the township crawl;
But shearers, when they get their cheque,
They never come along and wreck
The blessed town of Booligal.
"But down to Hay the shearers come
And fill themselves with fighting-rum,
And chase blue devils up the wall,
And fight the snaggers every day,
Until there is the deuce to pay --
There's none of that in Booligal.
"Of course, there isn't much to see --
The billiard-table used to be
The great attraction for us all,
Until some careless, drunken curs
Got sleeping on it in their spurs,
And ruined it, in Booligal.
"Just now there is a howling drought
That pretty near has starved us out --
It never seems to rain at all;
But, if there should come any rain,
You couldn't cross the black-soil plain --
You'd have to stop in Booligal."
"We'd have to stop!" With bated breath
We prayed that both in life and death
Our fate in other lines might fall;
"Oh, send us to our just reward
In Hay or Hell, but, gracious Lord,
Deliver us from Booligal!"
Scheme | AABCCBDDBEEB FFBGGB HHBIIB JJBKKB JJBLLB MMBGXB NNBOOB PPBQQB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011111 11010001 01010111 11010101 01110101 111101 01011101 01010001 11110101 01010101 01011 110101 11111101 11111111 11111111 11111101 01010111 010111 11010101 11010101 11010111 0110111 11011101 110101 01010101 11011111 01010101 1111111 11010101 01111 1111011 01011101 01110101 010101001 01110111 111101 11110111 01010111 01010111 01110101 11011011 010101 11110101 11011111 11011111 11111101 11010111 111101 11111101 11110101 101010111 111110101 01111101 010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,914 |
Words | 361 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 176 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:50 min read
- 107 Views
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"Hay and Hell and Booligal" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2529/hay-and-hell-and-booligal>.
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