Analysis of The Land Of The Dawning
George Essex Evans 1863 (London) – 1909 (Toowoomba)
Darkrose her shore in seas of amethyst
By tropic breezes kissed,
A summer land in watery wastes forlorn,
Her ranges floating in the snow-white mist
And gold of early morn.
The tides of Empire ebbed and flowed afar;
The thrones of nations in the dust were hurled,
Silent she slept beneath the morning star,
A virgin world.
Love, Birth, and Death, the stress of Age and Race,
Changed not her maiden face—
Unstocked her pastures and untilled her soil—
She who for labour builds a throne apace
Saw not her people toil;
Down the low valleys, up the stormy steeps,
Careless they roamed at will: the land was free
From desert stark to where the mangrove sleeps
Upon the sea.
There dropped no anchor at her river bars
Beneath the quiet stars;
No wandering sail her silent waters swept;
By waste and scrub, o’er plain and rocky scars
No alien footstep crept;
In feathery billows of her grassy seas
Some lonely mountain stretched its capes of blue;
Only the heavens above her and the breeze
Her secrets knew.
Where the wild grass grew rank on slopes forlorn
Rise fields of yellow corn,
And purple lucerne-bloom makes sweet the air;
The sullen mountain, lost in mists of morn,
Its golden heart lays bare.
Spoils of her pastures crowd full many a mart;
Her glittering treasure calls to many a land;
She has no secrets for the daring heart
And strong brown hand.
The smoke and thunder of her cities rise
To the same careless skies;
Her arteries thread the same wide sunlit leas,
Her fleets stretch forth their wings of enterprise
O’er the same summer seas.
She to the Nations cries: “No Past, no Fame,
No Memories quicken round my flag unfurled;
The mightier, therefore, shall I carve my name
Upon the World.”
Scheme | AABABCDCDEEFEFEGXG HHIHIJKJK BBLBLMNMN OOJOJPDPD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (22%) |
Metre | 101011100 110101 01010100101 0101000111 011101 011100100101 0111000101 1011010101 0101 1101011101 110101 10100101 111110101 110101 1011010101 1011110111 110111011 0101 1111010101 010101 11001010101 1101110101 110011 01001010101 1101011111 10010010001 0101 1011111101 111101 0101011101 0101010111 110111 11010111001 010010111001 1111010101 0111 0101010101 101101 0100101111 011111110 101101 1101011111 11001011101 0100111111 0101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,676 |
Words | 305 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 18, 9, 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 337 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 76 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:31 min read
- 68 Views
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