Analysis of Song of the Old Boundary Rider
Vance Palmer 1885 (Bundaberg) – 1959 (Kew)
Fat and full of health are the valleys of the Condamine,
There the yellow maize and the green tobacco grow,
Through the little gardens runs the trailing passion-vine,
And softly to the North the white downs flow.
Here nothing changes, seed-time or harvest-time,
Mulga on the skyline, mulga round the place,
Riding round the fences I hear the bells of bullocks chime,
But homely sounds come rarer than a woman's face.
Lonely is the day and lonely is the firelight,
Lonely is the heart when the trees come creeping near,
When the bobock calls the very dogs are dumb with fright,
And when a voice starts singing it's my own voice that I hear.
Back let me ride to the valley of the Condamine,
There the little homesteads nestle in their green,
Opal where the mists rise, amber where the paddocks shine,
My own things round me and none to come between.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EXEX AAAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (75%) |
Metre | 101111010101 10101001011 1010101010101 0101010111 11010111101 11011101 10101011011101 110111010101 10101010101 101011011101 101101011111 01011101111111 11111010101 1010110011 101011101011 11111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 855 |
Words | 154 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 168 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 46 sec read
- 98 Views
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"Song of the Old Boundary Rider" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37456/song-of-the-old-boundary-rider>.
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