Analysis of The Lion's Whelps
George Essex Evans 1863 (London) – 1909 (Toowoomba)
There is scarlet on his forehead,
There are scars across his face,
’Tis the bloody dew of battle dripping down, dripping down,
But the war-heart of the Lion
Turns to iron in its place
When he halts to face disaster, when he turns to meet disgrace,
Stung and keen and mettled with the life-blood of his own.
Let the hunters ’ware who flout him,
When he calls his whelps about him,
When he sets the goal before him and he settles to the pace.
Tricked and wounded! Are we beaten
Though they hold our strength at play?
We have faced these things aforetimes, long ago, long ago.
From sunlit Sydney Harbour
And ten thousand miles away,
From the far Canadian forests to the Sounds of Milford Bay,
They have answered, they have answered, and we know the answer now.
From the Britains such as these
Strewn across the world-wide seas
Comes the rally and the bugle-note that makes us one to-day.
Beaten! Let them come against us.
We can meet them one and all.
We have faced the World aforetimes, not in vain, not in vain.
Twice ten thousand hearths be widowed,
Twice ten thousand hearts may fall,
But a million voices answer: “We are ready for the call;
And the sword we draw for Justice shall not see its sheath again,
Nor our cannon cease to thunder
Till we break their strength asunder,
And the Lion’s whelps are round him and the Old Flag over all.”
Scheme | XAXBAAXCCABDXEDDXFFD XGXXGGXEEG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101110 1110111 10101110101101 10111010 1110011 111110101111101 101011011111 10101111 11111011 111010110110101 10101110 11110111 111111101101 111010 0110101 1010100101011101 111011100110101 1010111 1010111 101000101111111 10111011 1111101 111011101101 11101110 1110111 101010101110101 001111101111101 110101110 11111010 001011110011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,333 |
Words | 250 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 20, 10 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 526 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 124 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:15 min read
- 88 Views
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