Analysis of Who’ll Wear the Beaten Colours?
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
Who’ll wear the beaten colours—and cheer the beaten men?
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, till our time comes again?
Where sullen crowds are densest, and fickle as the sea,
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, and wear them home with me?
We closed the bars and gambling dens and voted straight and clean,
Our women walked while motor cars were whirling round the scene,
The Potts Point Vote was one for Greed and Ease and Luxury
With all to hold, and coward gold, and beaten folk are we.
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, with hands and pockets clean?
(I wore the beaten colours since I was seventeen)
I wore them up, and wore them down, Outback and across the sea—
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, and wear them home with me?
We wore them back from Ladysmith to where the peace was signed,
And wore them through the London streets where Jingoes howled behind.
We wore them to the Queen’s Hall, while England yelled “Pro-Boers!”
And sat them over victory while London banged the doors.1
We wore them from Port Arthur round till all sunk in the sea—
(Who’ll wear the white man’s colours, and wear them home with me?)
I’ve worn them through with gentlemen, with work-slaves and alone—
Who’ll wear the beaten colours, boys, and wear them on his own?
There’s one would look with startled eyes and shrink while I caressed,
Came I not with the colours of the conquered on my breast.
And twenty thousand Bushmen would stand with hands behind
And scorn in all their faces for the coward of his kind.
Who’ll wear the beaten colours and raise the voice they drowned—
It may be when we march again, they’ll bear some other sound—
Who’ll pin the beaten colours on and drive the beaten pen—
It may be other steel and ink when we march out again.
Scheme | aabB ccbb ccbB ddee bbff ggdd hhaa |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 110101010101 1101011101101 1101110010101 110101011111 110101001010101 101011101010101 01111111010100 11110101010111 110101110101 110101111101 11110111100101 110101011111 111111110111 0111010111101 1111011110111 01110100110101 11111101111001 110111011111 11111100111001 1101011011111 11111101011101 1111011010111 0101010111101 01011101010111 110101010111 11111101111101 1101011010101 11110101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,750 |
Words | 317 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 48 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 193 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 106 Views
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"Who’ll Wear the Beaten Colours?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18187/who%E2%80%99ll-wear-the-beaten-colours%3F>.
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