Analysis of Since Nellie Came To Live Along The Creek
Edward George Dyson 1865 (Ballarat, Victoria) – 1931 (Saint Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria)
MY HUT is built of stringy-bark, the window’s calico,
The furniture a gin-case, one bush-table, and a bunk;
Thick as wheat on my selection does the towering timber grow,
And the stately blue-gums’ taproots to the bedrock all are sunk;
Then the ferns spring up like nettles,
And the ti-tree comes and settles
On my clearing if I spell-oh for a week;
But I work for love of labour
Since I’ve got a handy neighbour,
And Miss Nellie’s come to live along the creek.
Time was when Death sat by me, and he stalked me through the trees;
Then my arm was weak as water, and my heart a weary thing;
I was sullen as a wombat on such still, wan days as these,
And my wedges all were rusty, and my axe had lost its ring.
Then a fear like sickness bound me,
And I cursed the trees around me,
For quite hopeless seemed the struggle I’d begun
And at night-time, cowed and sinking,
I would sit there thinking, thinking,
Gazing grimly down the barrels of my gun.
Then I felt the bush must crush me with its dreadful, brooding wings,
And its voices seemed to mock me, till I thought that I was mad
Like the mopoke, and the jackass, and the other loony things;
For beside my old dog, Brumbie, not a living mate I had.
Then each sapling was a giant,
And the stumps were all defiant,
And my friends were very few and far to seek;
But the bush is bright and splendid,
And my melancholy’s ended,
Since Miss Nellie came to live along the creek
I would swear she was the sweetest if the world was full of girls:
She’s as graceful as a sapling, and her waist is neat and slim;
She is dimpled o’er with smiling, and has glossy, golden curls,
And her eyes peep out like violets ’neath her sunhat’s jealous rim.
If I think I see her flitting
On the sun-crowned hill, or sitting
’Neath the fern-fronds where the creek sleeps, deep and cool,
Then my stroke is straight and steady,
And the white chips run and eddy,
And I laugh aloud at nothing, like a fool.
Now my axe rings like a sabre, and my heart exults with pride
When the green gums sweep the scrub down, and they thunder and rebound,
And then lie with limbs all shattered, reaching out on either side,
Like giants killed in battle, with their faces to the ground.
Now the bush has many pleasures,
And a wondrous store of treasures,
And a thousand tales its eerie voices speak;
But its strange night hushes, seeming
Sent to lure to mystic dreaming,
Have no terrors, now Miss Nellie’s on the creek.
I am happy when the thunder bumps and bellows on the hill,
And the tall trees writhe and wrestle with the fury of the gale,
Or when sunshine floods the clearing, and the bushland is so still
That I hear the creek’s low waters tinkle, tinkle on the shale.
In the thought that she is near me
There’s a charm to lift and cheer me,
And a power that makes me mighty seems to flow
From Miss Nellie’s distant coo-ey,
Or her twin lips red and dewy
When she comes by here, and shyly calls me ‘Joe.’
She can work from dawn to nightfall, and look handsome all the day;
At her smile my garden flourished, and the vines grew green and strong,
And the bush falls back before it, and it strikes the scrub away,
For it lingers ever with me, and it stirs me like a song.
Now I labour in all weathers,
And the logs are merest feathers,
Nor my heart nor yet my hand is ever weak,
And a higher thing my prize is
Than all else that life comprises—
Pretty Nell, who’s come to live along the creek.
Scheme | ABABCCDEED FGFGHHIGGI JKJKLLDMMD NONOGGPHHP QRQRSSDGGD TUTUHHAXHA VWVWSSDXXD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111110101010 01000111110001 1111101010100101 0010111101111 10111110 00111010 11101111101 1111111 1110101 0111110101 11111110111101 111111100110101 11101011111111 011010100111111 10111011 01101011 11101010101 01111010 11111010 10101010111 111011111110101 011011111111111 1010010010101 10111111010111 11101010 00101010 01101010111 10111010 01110 11101110101 111110101011111 111010100011101 111011100110101 001111100101101 11111010 10111110 10111011101 11111010 00111010 01101110101 111110100110111 101110110110001 011111101011101 11010101110101 10111010 00101110 00101110101 1111110 11111010 1110111101 111010101010101 001110101010101 1111010001111 111011101010101 00111111 10111011 001011110111 1111011 10111010 11111010111 11111110110101 101110100011101 001110110110101 111010110111101 1110110 00111010 11111111101 00101111 11111010 10111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 3,374 |
Words | 653 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 |
Lines Amount | 70 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 376 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 93 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:16 min read
- 62 Views
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"Since Nellie Came To Live Along The Creek" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9580/since-nellie-came-to-live-along-the-creek>.
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