Analysis of The Billy-Goat Overland

Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)



Come all ye lads of the droving days, ye gentlemen unafraid,
I'll tell you all of the greatest trip that ever a drover made,
For we rolled our swags, and we packed our bags, and taking our lives in hand,
We started away with a thousand goats, on the billy-goat overland.
There wasn't a fence that'd hold the mob, or keep 'em from their desires;
They skipped along the top of the posts and cake-walked on the wires.
And where the lanes had been stripped of grass and the paddocks were nice and green,
The goats they travelled outside the lanes and we rode in between.

The squatters started to drive them back, but that was no good at all,
Their horses ran for the lick of their lives from the scent that was like a wall:
And never a dog had pluck or gall in front of the mob to stand
And face the charge of a thousand goats on the billy-goat overland.

We found we were hundreds over strength when we counted out the mob;
And they put us in jail for a crowd of theives that travelled to steal and rob:
For every goat between here and Bourke, when he scented our spicy band,
Had left his home and his work to join in the billy-goat overland.


Scheme AABBCCDD EEBB FFBB
Poetic Form
Metre 11111011110001 1111101011100101 11110101110101010101 11001101011010110 110011010111111010 1101011010111010 0101111110010101 011101101011001 0101011111111111 110110111110111101 0100111110110111 0101101011010110 1110101011110101 011101101111101101 1100101101111010101 1111011110010110
Characters 1,146
Words 222
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 56
Words per line (avg) 14
Letters per stanza (avg) 296
Words per stanza (avg) 73
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:07 min read
121

Andrew Barton Paterson

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales, where he spent much of his childhood. Paterson's more notable poems include "Clancy of the Overflow" (1889), "The Man from Snowy River" (1890) and "Waltzing Matilda" (1895), regarded widely as Australia's unofficial national anthem. more…

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