Analysis of The Ballad of Cockatoo Dock
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
Of all the docks upon the blue
There was no dockyard, old or new,
To touch the dock at Cockatoo.
Of all the ministerial clan
There was no nicer, worthier man
Than Admiral O'Sullivan.
Of course, we mean E. W.
O'Sullivan, the hero who
Controlled the dock at Cockatoo.
To workmen he explained his views --
"You need not toil unless you choose,
Your only work is drawing screws."
And sometimes to their great surprise
When votes of censure filled the skies
He used to give them all a rise.
"What odds about a pound or two?"
Exclaimed the great E. W.
O'Sullivan at Cockatoo.
The dockyard superintendent, he
Was not at all what he should be --
He sneered at all this sympathy.
So when he gave a man the sack
O'Sullivan got on his track
And straightway went and fetched him back.
And with a sympathetic tear
He'd say, "How dare you interfere,
You most misguided engineer?
"Your sordid manners please amend --
No man can possibly offend
Who has a Member for a friend.
"With euchre, or a friendly rub,
And whisky, from the nearest 'pub',
We'll make the dockyard like a club.
"Heave ho, my hearties, play away,
We'll do no weary work today.
What odds -- the public has to pay!
"And if the public should complain
I'll go to Broken Hill by train
To watch McCarthy making rain."
And there, with nothing else to do
No doubt the great E. W.
Will straightway raise McCarthy's screw.
Scheme | AAA BBX AAA CCC DDD AAA EEE FFF XGG HHH III JJJ KKK AAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101 1111111 1101110 11001001 111101001 11000100 11111100 01000101 0101110 11010111 11110111 11011101 00111101 11110101 11111101 11010111 01011100 0100110 0100101 11111111 11111100 11110101 01001111 0110111 0100101 1111101 11010101 11010101 11110001 11010101 11010101 01010101 1101101 1111101 11110101 11010111 01010101 11110111 11010101 01110111 11011100 1110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,374 |
Words | 257 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 75 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 18 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 62 Views
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"The Ballad of Cockatoo Dock" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2618/the-ballad-of-cockatoo-dock>.
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