Analysis of After Cattle
Roderic Quinn 1867 (Surry Hills, New South Wales) – 1949 (Darlinghurst, New South Wales)
WE lit a fire, and straightway camped,
And all night long
We heard the river sing its song.
Our horses fed, and neighed, and stamped;
But else, o'er all
A haunted silence seemed to fall.
The gum-trees raised their lofty crests
So high, it seemed
They mingled with the stars and dreamed.
As when a tired bird sinks and rests
At end of day,
Head couched on arm, full length we lay.
But Nature would not let us sleep;
She loved so well
To talk, and had such things to tell.
Her fire-fly lamps within the deep
Green gullies shone
One moment, and the next were gone.
The smooth white trunks of ancient trees
In stately pride
Marched up the rugged mountain side.
No leaf fell fluttering on the breeze;
But everywhere
A stillness charmed the midnight air.
And as we lay without a word,
In silence camped,
Our horses in the darkness stamped.
At first, it seemed a timid bird
Sang soft below,
And then . . . we listened, breathing low.
We heard, elusive, strange, and shy,
A song arise —
The river voicing many cries.
At first, it was a human cry
Of sad unrest,
Of one cast down and sore distressed.
And then, an elfin chant it raised,
As when men cry
'We've silks to sell; who'll buy, who'll buy?'
And goods were cried and wares were praised;
It seemed like some
Far market-place in Fairydom.
Yet ever through the chorus stole
The sore-distressed,
Faint human note of sad unrest.
We woke and saw the morning roll
In waves of gold
Upon the mountains green and bold;
Birds sang, flowers laughed, the grass was green;
The sky above
Bent over, arching earth with love;
And, riding through that woodland scene
Of rocks and rills,
We heard the cattle in the hills.
Scheme | ABBACCDEEDFFGHHGIJKLLKMMNAANOOPQQPRRSPPSTTURRUVVWXXWDY |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010011 0111 11010111 101010101 11101 01010111 01111101 1111 11010101 110101101 1111 11111111 11011111 1111 11011111 010110101 1101 11000101 01111101 0101 11010101 111100101 110 0101011 01110101 0101 101000101 11110101 1101 01110101 11010101 0101 01010101 11110101 1101 11110101 01110111 1111 11111111 01010101 1111 110101 11010101 0101 11011101 11010101 0111 01010101 111010111 0101 11010111 0101111 1101 11010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,607 |
Words | 305 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 54 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,278 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 305 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:32 min read
- 100 Views
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"After Cattle" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32912/after-cattle>.
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