Analysis of Kangaroo
David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)
Delicate mother Kangaroo
Sitting up there rabbit-wise, but huge, plump-weighted,
And lifting her beautiful slender face, oh! so much more
gently and finely lined than a rabbit's, or than a hare's,
Lifting her face to nibble at a round white peppermint drop
which she loves, sensitive mother Kangaroo.
Her sensitive, long, pure-bred face.
Her full antipodal eyes, so dark,
So big and quiet and remote, having watched so many
empty dawns in silent Australia.
Her little loose hands, and drooping Victorian shoulders.
And then her great weight below the waist, her vast pale belly,
With a thin young yellow little paw hanging out, and
straggle of a long thin ear, like ribbon,
Like a funny trimming to the middle of her belly, thin
little dangle of an immature paw, and one thin ear.
Her belly, her big haunches
And, in addition, the great muscular python-stretch of her tail.
There, she shan't have any more peppermint drops.
So she wistfully, sensitively sniffs the air, and then turns,
goes off in slow sad leaps
On the long flat skis of her legs,
Steered and propelled by that steel-strong snake of a tail.
Stops again, half turns, inquisitive to look back.
While something stirs quickly in her belly, and a lean little
face comes out, as from a window,
Peaked and a bit dismayed,
Only to disappear again quickly away from the sight of the
world, to snuggle down in the warmth,
Leaving the trail of a different paw hanging out.
Still she watches with eternal, cocked wistfulness!
How full her eyes are, like the full, fathomless, shining
eyes of an Australian black-boy
Who has been lost so many centuries on the margins of
existence!
She watches with insatiable wistfulness.
Untold centuries of watching for something to come,
For a new signal from life, in that silent lost land of the
South.
Where nothing bites but insects and snakes and the sun,
small life.
Where no bull roared, no cow ever lowed, no stag cried,
no leopard screeched, no lion coughed, no dog barked,
But all was silent save for parrots occasionally, in the
haunted blue bush.
Wistfully watching, with wonderful liquid eyes.
And all her weight, all her blood, dropping sackwise down
towards the earth's centre,
And the live little-one taking in its paw at the door of her
belly.
Scheme | AXXBXA XXCD XCXEXX BF XXXXF XXXXDXX GXXXXGXDX EXXXDX XXHHC |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001001 101110111110 01001001011111 1001011011101 10011101011101 1111001001 01001111 010100111 11010001101110 101010010 01011010010010 01011010101110 1011101011010 1010111110 101010101010101 1010110110111 010011 0001001100101101 11111101101 111001000101011 110111 10111101 100111111101 101110100111 110110001000110 11111010 100101 1010101100110110 11101001 1001101001101 111010101100 11011101110 11101011 111111010010101 010 11010100100 0110011011011 101101101101110 1 11011101001 11 111111101111 11011101111 1111011100100000 1011 100101100101 01011011011 010110 0011011001110110 10 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,259 |
Words | 390 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 4, 6, 2, 5, 7, 9, 6, 5 |
Lines Amount | 50 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 198 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:58 min read
- 190 Views
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"Kangaroo" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7849/kangaroo>.
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