Analysis of El Mahdi to the Australian Troops
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
And wherefore have they come, this warlike band,
That o'er the ocean many a weary day
Have tossed; and now beside Suakim's Bay,
With faces stern and resolute, do stand,
Waking the desert's echoes with the drum --
Men of Australia, wherefore have ye come?
To keep the Puppet Khedive on the throne,
To strike a blow for tyranny and wrong,
To crush the weak and aid the oppressing strong!
Regardless of the hapless Fellah's moan,
To force the payment of the Hebrew loan,
Squeezing the tax like blood from out the stone?
And fair Australia, freest of the free,
Is up in arms against the freeman's fight;
And with her mother joined to crush the right --
Has left her threatened treasures o'er the sea,
Has left her land of liberty and law
To flesh her maiden sword in this unholy war.
Enough! God never blessed such enterprise --
England's degenerate Generals yet shall rue
Brave Gordon sacrificed, when soon they view
The children of a thousand deserts rise
To drive them forth like sand before the gale --
God and the Prophet! Freedom will prevail.
Scheme | ABBACCDEEDDD FGGFXX HIIHJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111111 110010100101 11010111 110101011 100110101 110101111 110101101 1101110001 11010100101 010101011 1101010101 1001111101 0101010101 1101010101 0101011101 11010101001 1101110001 110101010101 011101110 100100100111 110101111 0101010101 1111110101 1001010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,053 |
Words | 189 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 274 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 62 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 188 Views
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"El Mahdi to the Australian Troops" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2517/el-mahdi-to-the-australian-troops>.
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