Analysis of Camouflage
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds
The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds,
"I've got a letter here," he said, "that no one's understood,
Addressed as follows: 'To the bird that's like a piece of wood.'
"The soldier bird got very cross -- it wasn't meant for her;
The spurwing plover had a try to stab me with a spur:
The jackass laughed, and said the thing was written for a lark.
I think I'll chuck this postman job and take to stripping bark."
Then all the birds for miles around came in to lend a hand;
They perched upon a broken limb as thick as they could stand,
And just as old man eaglehawk prepared to have his say
A portion of the broken limb got up and flew away.
Then, casting grammar to the winds, the postman said, "That's him!
The boobook owl -- he squats himself along a broken limb,
And pokes his beak up like a stick; there's not a bird, I vow,
Can tell you which is boobook owl and which is broken bough.
"And that's the thing he calls his nest -- that jerry-built affair --
A bunch of sticks across a fork; I'll leave his letter there.
A cuckoo wouldn't use his nest, but what's the odds to him --
A bird that tries to imitate a piece of leaning limb!"
Scheme | AABBCCDD EEFF GGHH IIGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010101011100101 0101101010101 1101011111101 01110101110111 01011101110110 0110101111101 0110101110101 11111101011101 11011101101101 11010101111111 011111011111 01010101110101 11010101010111 0111101010101 01111101110111 1111111011101 01011111110101 01110101111101 0110111110111 0111110011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,226 |
Words | 242 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 46 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 231 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 59 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 79 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Camouflage" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2507/camouflage>.
Discuss this Andrew Barton Paterson poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In