Analysis of A Song of the Republic

Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)



Sons of the South, awake! arise!
Sons of the South, and do.
Banish from under your bonny skies
Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies.
Making a hell in a Paradise
That belongs to your sons and you.

Sons of the South, make choice between
(Sons of the South, choose true),
The Land of Morn and the Land of E'en,
The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green,
The Land that belongs to the lord and the Queen,
And the Land that belongs to you.

Sons of the South, your time will come –
Sons of the South, 'tis near –
The "Signs of the Times", in their language dumb,
Fortell it, and ominous whispers hum
Like sullen sounds of a distant drum,
In the ominous atmosphere.

Sons of the South, aroused at last!
Sons of the South are few!
But your ranks grow longer and deeper fast,
And ye shall swell to an army vast,
And free from the wrongs of the North and Past
The land that belongs to you.


Scheme ABAAXB CBXCCB DEDDDE FBFFFB
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101 110101 101101101 111100101 10010010 10111101 11011101 110111 0111001111 011100111 01101101001 00110111 11011111 110111 0110101101 110100101 110110101 0010010 11010111 110111 1111100101 011111101 0110110101 0110111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 896
Words 175
Sentences 11
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 169
Words per stanza (avg) 43
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 22, 2023

52 sec read
107

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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    What is the term for the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.
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