Analysis of Ben Boyd's Tower
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
Ben Boyd's Tower is watching—
Watching o’er the sea;
Ben Boyd’s Tower is waiting
For her and me.
We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But we know that we shall meet
By Ben Boyd’s Tower.
Moonlight peoples Boyd Tower,
Mystic are its walls;
Lightly dance the lovers
In its haunted halls.
Ben Boyd’s Tower is watching—
Watching o’er the foam;
Ben Boyd’s Tower is waiting
Till the “Wanderer” comes home.
O! he lay above us—
High above the surf—
Finger-nails and toe-caps
Digging in the turf.
We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But Two and Two shall meet again
By Ben Boyd’s Tower.
There’s an ancient dame in Eden—
Basket on her arm—
And she goes down the Main Street
From the old, old farm.
Hood drawn on her forehead—
Withered dame and grey—
She never looks on Boyd Tower
Out across the Bay.
Bright eyes in the ballroom,
Coquetting with two,
Just for love of mischief,
As a girl will do.
A quarrel in the bar-room—
All within the hour—
And four men rode from Boyd Town
To Ben Boyd’s Tower.
Scheme | abAbCDeD dfxf agAg xhxh CDxD xiei xcdc jkxkjdxd |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (23%) Etheree (23%) |
Metre | 1110110 10101 1110110 1001 111101 1111010 1111111 11110 110110 10111 101010 01101 1110110 10101 1110110 1010011 111011 10101 101011 10001 111101 1111010 11011101 11110 11101010 10101 0111011 10111 111010 10101 11011110 10101 11001 111 111110 10111 0100011 101010 0111111 11110 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,030 |
Words | 196 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 19 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 96 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 80 Views
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"Ben Boyd's Tower" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17746/ben-boyd%27s-tower>.
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