Analysis of Ben Duggan
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began,
And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man;
Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head -- her daughter's grief was wild,
And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child.
But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and far,
To raise the longest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.
By station home
And shearing shed
Ben Duggan cried, `Jack Denver's dead!
Roll up at Talbragar!'
He borrowed horses here and there, and rode all Christmas Eve,
And scarcely paused a moment's time the mournful news to leave;
He rode by lonely huts and farms, and when the day was done
He turned his panting horse's head and rode to Ross's Run.
No bushman in a single day had ridden half so far
Since Johnson brought the doctor to his wife at Talbragar.
By diggers' camps
Ben Duggan sped --
At each he cried, `Jack Denver's dead!
Roll up at Talbragar!'
That night he passed the humpies of the splitters on the ridge,
And roused the bullock-drivers camped at Belinfante's Bridge;
And as he climbed the ridge again the moon shone on the rise;
The soft white moonbeams glistened in the tears that filled his eyes;
He dashed the rebel drops away -- for blinding things they are --
But 'twas his best and truest friend who died on Talbragar.
At Blackman's Run
Before the dawn,
Ben Duggan cried, `Poor Denver's gone!
Roll up at Talbragar!'
At all the shanties round the place they'd heard his horse's tramp,
He took the track to Wilson's Luck, and told the diggers' camp;
But in the gorge by Deadman's Gap the mountain shades were black,
And there a newly-fallen tree was lying on the track --
He saw too late, and then he heard the swift hoof's sudden jar,
And big Ben Duggan ne'er again rode home to Talbragar.
`The wretch is drunk,
And Denver's dead --
A burning shame!' the people said
Next day at Talbragar.
For thirty miles round Talbragar the boys rolled up in strength,
And Denver had a funeral a good long mile in length;
Round Denver's grave that Christmas day rough bushmen's eyes were dim --
The western bushmen knew the way to bury dead like him;
But some returning homeward found, by light of moon and star,
Ben Duggan dying in the rocks, five miles from Talbragar.
They knelt around,
He raised his head
And faintly gasped, `Jack Denver's dead,
Roll up at Talbragar!'
But one short hour before he died he woke to understand,
They told him, when he asked them, that the funeral was `grand';
And then there came into his eyes a strange victorious light,
He smiled on them in triumph, and his great soul took its flight.
And still the careless bushmen tell by tent and shanty bar
How Duggan raised a funeral years back on Talbragar.
And far and wide
When Duggan died,
The bushmen of the western side
Rode in to Talbragar.
Scheme | aabbcc xddC eeffcc xddC gghhcc fiiC jjkkcc xddc llmmcc xddC xbnncc oooc |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 110111110101 01110101110101 11011101010111 01110101110101 11110101010101 1101010010111 1101 0101 11011101 1111 1110101011101 01010101010111 11110101010111 11110101011101 11000101110111 110101011111 1101 1101 11111101 1111 111101101101 01010101111 01110101011101 0111100011111 11010101110111 111101011111 111 0101 11011101 1111 11010101111101 11011101010101 1001111010101 01010101110101 11110111011101 011101011111 0111 0101 01010101 1111 110111011101 01010100011101 1101110111101 01010101110111 11010101111101 110100011111 1101 1111 01011101 1111 11110011111101 11111111010011 011101110101001 11110100111111 01010101110101 110101001111 0101 1101 01010101 1011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,896 |
Words | 514 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 181 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:38 min read
- 51 Views
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"Ben Duggan" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17747/ben-duggan>.
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