Analysis of My Father-in-Law and I
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
MY father-in-law is a careworn man,
And a silent man is he;
But he summons a smile as well as he can
Whenever he meets with me.
The sign we make with a silent shake
That speaks of the days gone by—
Like men who meet at a funeral—
My father-in-law and I.
My father-in-law is a sober man
(And a virtuous man, I think);
But we spare a shilling whenever we can,
And we both drop in for a drink.
Our pints they fill, and we say, “Ah, well!”
With the sound of the world-old sigh—
Like the drink that comes after a funeral—
My father-in-law and I.
My father-in-law is a kindly man—
A domestic man is he.
He tries to look cheerful as well as he can
Whenever he meets with me.
But we stand and think till the second drink
In a silence that might imply
That we’d both get over a funeral,
My father-in-law and I.
Scheme | abaBxcdC aeaexcdC abaBecdC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110011011 0010111 11100111111 0101111 011110101 1110111 111110100 1100101 1100110101 00100111 11101001011 01110101 1011101111 10110111 10111100100 1100101 1100110101 0010111 11111011111 0101111 1110110101 00101101 1111100100 1100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 802 |
Words | 164 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 200 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 117 Views
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"My Father-in-Law and I" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17857/my-father-in-law-and-i>.
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