Analysis of The Voice from Over Yonder

Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)



“Did she care as much as I did
When our paths of Fate divided?
Was the love, then, all onesided—
Did she understand or care?”
Slowly fall the moments leaden,
And the silence seems to deaden—
And a voice from over yonder answers sadly: “I’ve been there.”

“Have you tramped the streets of cities
Poor? And do you know what it is—
While no mortal cares or pities—
To have drifted past ambition;
To have sunk below despair?
Doomed to slave and stint and borrow;
Ever haunted in your sorrow
By the spectre of To-morrow?”
And the voice from over yonder answers sadly: “I’ve been there.”

“Surely in the wide Hereafter
There’s a land of love and laughter?
Say: Is this life all we live for—
Say it! think it, if you dare!
Have you ever thought or wondered
Why the Man and God were sundered?
Do you think the Maker blundered?”
And the voice, in mocking accents, answered only: “I’ve been there.”


Scheme AXABCCB DXDCBEEEB FFXBGAGB
Poetic Form
Metre 11111111 110111010 101111 110111 10101010 00101110 001110101010111 11101110 10111111 1110111 11101010 1110101 1110101 10100110 10101110 001110101010111 10001010 10111010 11111111 1111111 11101110 1010101 11101010 001010101010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 913
Words 171
Sentences 14
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 7, 9, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 226
Words per stanza (avg) 54
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

51 sec read
68

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson 17 June 1867 - 2 September 1922 was an Australian writer and poet Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period more…

All Henry Lawson poems | Henry Lawson Books

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