Analysis of The Things We Dare Not Tell
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.
There's the old love wronged ere the new was won, there's the light of long ago;
There's the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we're doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.
We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men's hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.
We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.
Scheme | AABB CCBB AABB DDBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 011101010011101 111101011010110111 1110101010111101 1111011111011011111 10111101111011101 10101111010010111 11111101010110101 1111011111011011111 1111001011011101 1011110101111111 110101011110101 111101101111011111 1111101011010001 11101101111010101 1111011111111101 10111101011011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 1,168 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 55 |
Words per line (avg) | 15 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 220 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 60 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 118 Views
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