Analysis of The Kangaroo
Kanagaroo, Kangaroo!
Thou Spirit of Australia,
That redeems from utter failure,
From perfect desolation,
And warrants the creation
Of this fifth part of the Earth,
Which would seem an after-birth,
Not conceiv'd in the Beginning
(For GOD bless'd His work at first,
And saw that it was good),
But emerg'd at the first sinning,
When the ground was therefore curst; --
And hence this barren wood!
Kangaroo, Kangaroo!
Tho' at first sight we should say,
In thy nature that there may
Contradiction be involv'd,
Yet, like discord well resolv'd,
It is quickly harmonized.
Sphynx or mermaid realiz'd,
Or centaur unfabulous,
Would scarce be more prodigious,
Or Pegasus poetical,
Or hippogriff -- chimeras all!
But, what Nature would compile,
Nature knows to reconcile;
And Wisdom, ever at her side,
Of all her children's justified.
She had made the squirrel fragile;
She had made the bounding hart;
But a third so strong and agile
Was beyond ev'n Nature's art;
So she join'd the former two
In thee, Kangaroo!
To describe thee, it is hard:
Converse of the camélopard,
Which beginneth camel-wise,
But endeth of the panther size,
Thy fore half, it would appear,
Had belong'd to some "small deer,"
Such as liveth in a tree;
By thy hinder, thou should'st be
A large animal of chace,
Bounding o'er the forest's space; --
Join'd by some divine mistake,
None but Nature's hand can make --
Nature, in her wisdom's play,
On Creation's holiday.
For howsoe'er anomalous,
Thou yet art not incongruous,
Repugnant or preposterous.
Better-proportion'd animal,
More graceful or ethereal,
Was never follow'd by the hound,
With fifty steps to thy one bound.
Thou can'st not be amended: no;
Be as thou art; thou best art so.
When sooty swans are once more rare,
And duck-moles the Museum's care,
Be still the glory of this land,
Happiest Work of finest Hand!
Scheme | ABXCCDDEFGEFG AHHIIJJHKBXLLMM NONOAAXFPPQQRRSSTTHH KKKNNUUVV WWXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101 1101010 10111010 101010 0100010 1111101 1111101 10100010 1111111 011111 10110110 101111 011101 0101 1111111 0110111 010101 1110101 111010 11110 111 1111010 11001 1111 1110101 101110 01010101 1101010 11101010 1110101 10111010 10111101 1110101 0101 1011111 101011 11101 1110101 1111101 1011111 111001 11101111 0110011 10100101 1110101 1110111 100011 1110 110100 11110100 01010100 10010100 11010100 11010101 11011111 111110101 11111111 11011111 01100101 11010111 10011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,836 |
Words | 311 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 13, 15, 20, 9, 4 |
Lines Amount | 61 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 283 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 62 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 77 Views
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"The Kangaroo" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4209/the-kangaroo>.
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