Analysis of The Splitter
Edward George Dyson 1865 (Ballarat, Victoria) – 1931 (Saint Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria)
IN THE MORN when the keen blade bites the tree,
And the chips on the dead leaves dance,
And the bush echoes back right merrily
Blow for blow as the sunbeams glance
From the axe when it sweeps in circles true,
Then the splitter at heart is gay;
He exults in the work he’s set to do,
And he feels like a boy at play.
Swinging free with a stroke that’s straight and strong
To the heart of the messmate sent,
He is cheered by the magpie’s morning song
With the ring of the metal blent,
But the birds in their terror scatter high
When she falls with a rush and bound,
And the quivering saplings split and fly,
And the ranges all roar around.
Who is lord when the axeman mounts his spar,
And the breeze on his brown breast blows,
When the scent of the new wood floats afar,
And the gum from its red wounds flows?
With the bush at his back he laughs at care,
With a pipe and a right good mate—
There is drink in the billy, grub to spare,
And a bunk in the ten-by-eight.
When the sun’s in the west, from nooks aloft
Where the stringy is straight and tall,
Come the strains of a chorus quaint and soft,
Or the clink of the wedge and maul;
From the gully a murmur of broken talk
Or the song that the crosscut sings;
For the bush is a-dream, and high the hawk
Hangs at rest on his cradling wings.
But at night, by the tent, when tea is done
And when euchre’s begun to flag—
In the bush he may hear a distant gun
Or the neigh of a lonely nag—
Then the splitter has thoughts no longer gay,
And sorrows he cannot drown,
For he dreams of a girl who’s far away,
Or the joys of a spree in town.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJKLKL XMXMNONO PQPQDRDR |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (23%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0011011101 00110111 0011011100 1111011 1011110101 1011111 1010011111 01110111 1011011101 1011011 111101101 10110101 1010110101 11110101 0010010101 00101101 111101111 00111111 1011011101 00111111 1011111111 10100111 1110010111 00100111 1010011101 10101101 1011010101 10110101 10100101101 1011011 1011010101 111111001 1111011111 0110111 0011110101 10110101 101111101 0101101 1111011101 10110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,564 |
Words | 320 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 243 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:36 min read
- 55 Views
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"The Splitter" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9608/the-splitter>.
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