Analysis of Knights Of The Never Never
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)
When I rode with young Sid Kidman out across the Yarrowie Plain
In that year the Long Drought ended, and the northlands smiled again
As we took the old Tarcowie track and on to Booleroo,
His keen eye scanned the country, and we yarned of men we knew:
Mal Murray and Jim Spicer, of Jasser and Judell,
Bill Mitchell and old stagers whom I still remember well;
And he told of chance-missed fortunes when the game was in his grasp,
Of life along The Barrier with German Charlie Rasp.
Now, back in Kidman country where the grizzled bushmen are,
In many a stark out-station, o'er many a shanty bar,
The drovers' drawling voices talk about 'Old Sid' today:
'Bushmen like him ain't raised no more,' the grizzled veterans say,
For o'er the furthest saltbush lands his questing mind went out
To glimpse high opportunity where others saw black drought.
Shrewd-eyed, yet greatly daring, laughing he ventured forth
To stake his luck, his judgment 'gainst swift treacheries 'up north.'
'I mind the time I rode with him,' a wizened stockman says.
'He knowed that country like a map, an' all the tricks an' ways.
'Aye, and he knowed the cattle game.' The voices drone and drawl,
Till, 'The time I rode for Kidman,' is the burden of them all.
'Deserved his luck? Too right he did, seein' how he began;
But times like them don't come again for us or any man.
Them meddlin' airyplans an' sich brings old days to an end.'
And so they mourn, no magnate, but a bushman and a friend.
So the best-known bushman passes in the fullness of his years;
And, with his passing, so an olden order disappears
Sid Kidman, Jimmy Tyson - rugged princes of Outback,
Who sought their fortunes far afield along the arid track;
Strong men who, taking heart of grace, unflinchingly rode forth
To play a rough, grim game, and win, against the stubborn North;
To become a land's tradition, future figures of romance,
Busmen who fought and loved their bush; the men who took a chance.
Scheme | XXAXBBCC AADDEEFF XXBBGGHH IIJJFFKK |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111110101011 01101110001101 11101110111 11110100111111 11001101101 1100111110101 011111101011011 11010100110101 11010101010101 0100111010100101 011101011101 101111110101001 1100101111111 1110100110111 1111010101101 111111011111 11011111010101 11110101110111 10110101010101 101111101010111 0111111111101 11111101111101 11111111111 01111101010001 101110100010111 0111011101001 1101010101011 11110101010101 11110111111 11011101010101 101010101010101 1110111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,922 |
Words | 355 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 47 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 377 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 87 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:46 min read
- 129 Views
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"Knights Of The Never Never" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6418/knights-of-the-never-never>.
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