Analysis of Western Australia
John Boyle O'Reilly 1844 (Dowth) – 1890 (Boston)
O Beauteous Southland! Land of yellow air
That hangeth o've thee slumbering, and doth hold
The moveless foliage of thy valleys fair,
And wooded hills, like aureole of gold.
Oh thou, discovered ere the fitting time,
Ere Nature in completion turned thee forth!
Ere aught was finished but thy peerless clime,
Thy virgin breath allured the amorous North.
O Land, God made thee wondrous to the eye!
But His sweet singers thou hast never heard;
He left thee, meaning to come bye-and-bye,
And give rich voice to every bright-winged bird.
He painted with fresh hues thy myriad flowers,
But left them scentless; ah! their woeful dole,
Like sad reproach of their creator's powers,
To make so sweet fair bodies, void of soul.
He gave thee trees of odorous precious wood;
But, midst them all, bloomed not one tree of fruit.
He looked, but said not that His work was good,
When leaving thee all perfumeless and mute.
He blessed thy flowers with honey; every bell
Looks earthward, sunward, with a yearning wist,
But no bee-lover ever notes the swell
Of hearts, like lips, a-hungering to be kist.
O Strange Land, thou art virgin! Thou art more
Than fig-tree barren! Would that I could paint
For other's eyes the glory of the shore
Where last I saw thee; but the senses faint.
In soft delicious dreaming when they drain
Thy wine of colour. Virgin fair thou art.
All sweetly fruitful, waiting with soft pain
The spouse that comes to wake thy sleeping heart.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN OPOP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
Metre | 11111101 11111100011 011011101 0101110011 1101010101 1100010111 1111011101 11010101001 1111110101 1111011101 1111011101 01111100111 110111110010 111111101 110111110 1111110111 11111100101 1111111111 1111111111 11011101 111101101001 111010101 1111010101 11110100111 1111110111 1111011111 1101010101 1111110101 0101010111 111110111 1101010111 0111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,417 |
Words | 254 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 142 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 31, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 119 Views
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"Western Australia" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22106/western-australia>.
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