Analysis of The Last Parade
Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)
With never a sound of trumpet,
With never a flag displayed,
The last of the old campaigners
Lined up for the last parade.
Weary they were and battered,
Shoeless, and knocked about;
From under their ragged forelocks
Their hungry eyes looked out.
And they watched as the old commander
Read out to the cheering men
The Nation's thanks, and the orders
To carry them home again.
And the last of the old campaigners,
Sinewy, lean, and spare --
He spoke for his hungry comrades:
"Have we not done our share?
"Starving and tired and thirsty
We limped on the blazing plain;
And after a long night's picket
You saddled us up again.
"We froze on the windswept kopjes
When the frost lay snowy-white,
Never a halt in the daytime,
Never a rest at night!
"We knew when the rifles rattled
From the hillside bare and brown,
And over our weary shoulders
We felt warm blood run down,
"As we turned for the stretching gallop,
Crushed to the earth with weight;
But we carried our riders through it --
Sometimes, perhaps, too late.
"Steel! We were steel to stand it --
We that have lasted through,
We that are old campaigners
Pitiful, poor, and few.
"Over the sea you brought us,
Over the leagues of foam:
Now we have served you fairly
Will you not take us home?
"Home to the Hunter River,
To the flats where the lucerne grows;
Home where the Murrumbidgee
Runs white with the melted snows.
"This is a small thing, surely!
Will not you give command
That the last of the old campaigners
Go back to their native land?"
They looked at the grim commander,
But never a sign he made.
"Dismiss!" and the old campaigners
Moved off from their last parade.
Scheme | XABA XCBC DEBE BFXF GXHE BIXI XJBJ XKHK HLBL XMGM DNXN GOBO DABA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (92%) |
Metre | 11001110 1100101 01101010 1110101 1010010 10101 1101101 110111 011101010 1110101 01010010 1101101 001101010 100101 1111101 1111101 10010010 1110101 01001110 1101101 111011 1011101 1001001 100111 11101010 101101 010101010 111111 111101010 110111 1110101011 010111 1101111 111101 1111010 100101 1001111 100111 1111110 111111 1101010 10110101 1101 1110101 1101110 111101 101101010 1111101 11101010 1100111 01001010 1111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,631 |
Words | 300 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 52 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 97 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 1:30 min read
- 107 Views
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"The Last Parade" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2652/the-last-parade>.
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