Analysis of Australian Federata
James Lister Cuthbertson 1851 – 1910
AUSTRALIA! land of lonely lake
And serpent-haunted fen;
Land of the torrent and the fire
And forest-sundered men:
Thou art not now as thou shalt be
When the stern invaders come,
In the hush before the hurricane,
The dread before the drum.
A louder thunder shall be heard
Than echoes on thy shore,
When o’er the blackened basalt cliffs
The foreign cannon roar—
When the stand is made in the sheoaks’ shade
When heroes fall for thee,
And the creeks in gloomy gullies run
Dark crimson to the sea:
When under honeysuckles gray,
And wattles’ swaying gold,
The stalwart arm may strike no more,
The valiant heart is cold—
When thou shalt know the agony,
The fever, and the strife
Of those who wrestle against odds
For liberty and life:
Then is the great Dominion born,
The seven sisters bound,
From Sydney’s greenly wooded port
To lone King George’s Sound—
Then shall the islands of the south,
The lands of bloom and snow,
Forth from their isolation come
To meet the common foe.
Then, only then—when after war
Is peace with honour born,
When from the bosom of the night
Comes golden-sandalled morn,
When laurelled victory is thine,
And the day of battle done,
Shall the heart of a mighty people stir,
And Australia be as one.
Scheme | XABACDXDXEXEXCFC XGEGCHXH IJXJXKDK EIXIXFBF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (28%) |
Metre | 01011101 010101 110100010 01011 11111111 1010101 00101010 010101 01010111 110111 11010011 010101 101110011 110111 001010101 110101 1101001 010101 01011111 010111 11110100 010001 11110011 110001 11010101 010101 1110101 111101 11010101 011101 1110101 110101 11011101 11111 11010101 11011 1110011 0011101 1011010101 0010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,269 |
Words | 219 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 241 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 57 Views
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"Australian Federata" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20223/australian-federata>.
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