Analysis of The Digger's Song
Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake 1866 – 1892
Scrape the bottom of the hole: gather up the stuff,
Fossick in the crannies, lest you leave a grain
behind,
Just another shovelful and that'll be enough,-
Now we'll take it to the bank and see what we can
find,
Give the dish a twirl around,
Let the water swirl around,
Gently let it circulate, there's music in the swish,
And the tinkle of the gravel,
As the pebbles quickly travel
Around in merry circles on the bottom of the dish.
Ah, if man could only wash his life, if he only could,
Panning off the evil deeds, keeping but the
good,
What a mighty lot of digger's dishes would be sold,
Though I fear the heap of tailings would be greater
than the gold,
Give the dish a twirl around,
Let the water swirl around,
Man's the sport of circumstance however he may
wish,
Fortune! are you there now?
Answer to my prayer now,
And drop a half ounce nugget in the bottom of
the dish.
Gently let the water lap, keep the corners dry,
That's about the place the gold will generally stay,
What was that bright particle that just then
caught my eye?
I fear me by the look of things 'twas only yellow
clay,
Just another twirl around,
Let the water swirl around,
That's the way we rob the river of its golden fish,
What's that? can't we snare a one?
Don't say that there's ne'er a one,
Bah, there's not a colour in the bottom of the dish.
Scheme | axbaxbCCdeed fxfgxgCChdiixd jhxjxhcCdkkd |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101010110101 1001011101 01 10101010101 111110101111 1 1010101 1010101 101110110001 00101010 10101010 01010101010101 11111011111101 10101011010 1 101011110111 111011101110 101 1010101 1010101 1011101011 1 101111 101111 010111000101 01 101010110101 1010101110001 1111100111 111 1111011111010 1 1010101 1010101 1011101011101 1111101 1111101 111010010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,885 |
Words | 256 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 14, 12 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 339 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 85 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 1:20 min read
- 70 Views
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