Analysis of The Cow

Bernard O'Dowd 1866 (Beaufort) – 1953



THIS is a rune I ravelled in the still,   
 Arrogant stare of an Australian cow—   
 ‘These prankt intruders of the hornless brow,   
Puffed up with strange illusions of their skill   
To fence, to milk, to fatten and to kill,           
 Once worshipped me with temple, rite and vow,   
 Crowned me with stars, and bade rapt millions bow   
Before what abject guess they called my will!   

‘To-day, this flunkey of my midden, Man,   
 Throws child-oblations in my milking byre,           
   Stifles in slums to spare me lordly fields,   
 Flatters with spotless consorts my desire,   
   And for a pail of cream his birth-right yields,   
As once in Egypt, Hellas, Ind, Iran!’


Scheme ABBAABBA XCDCDX
Poetic Form
Metre 110111001 1001110101 1101010101 1111010111 1111110011 1101110101 1111011101 0111011111 11111111 11101101 100111111 111011010 0101111111 110101101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 684
Words 110
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 239
Words per stanza (avg) 54
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
124

Bernard O'Dowd

Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was an Australian activist, educator, poet, journalist, and author of several law books and poetry books. O'Dowd worked as an assistant-librarian and later Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman in the Supreme Court at Melbourne for 48 years; he was also a co-publisher and writer for the radical paper Tocsin. Bernard O'Dowd lived to age 87. more…

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