Analysis of Ah Ling, The Leper

Edward George Dyson 1865 (Ballarat, Victoria) – 1931 (Saint Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria)



UP a dark and fetid alley, where the offal and the slime
Of a brave and blusterous city met its misery and crime,
In a hovel reeking pestilence, and noisome as the grave,
Dwelt Ah Ling, the Chinese joiner, and the sweater’s willing slave.

Squatting down amongst the shavings, with his chisel and his plane,
Through the long, hot days of striving, dead to pleasure and to pain,
Like a creature barely human, very yellow, gaunt, and grim,
Ah Ling laboured on, for pleasure spread no lures that tempted him.

And the curious people, watching through the rotten wall at night,
Saw his death’s face weirdly outlined in the candle’s feeble light;
Saw him still intent upon his work, ill-omened and unclean,
Planing, sawing, nailing, hewing—just a skin and bone machine.

Neither kith nor kin the joiner had; perchance he nerved his hand
With the treasured hope of seeing once again his native land
As a Chinaman of fortune, and of finishing his life
At his ease in China Proper, with a painted Chinese wife.

But Ah Ling grew yet more grisly, and ’twas easy now to trace
Signs of vice and fierce privations in his scarred and pitted face,
With a dreadful something added. By this thing the truth was known,
And his countrymen forsook him, and he lived and toiled alone.

Still the work came in, and still he slaved and saw his earnings grow.
Who’s to trouble where the goods are made when buyers will not know?
Gimcrack chairs and pretty nick-nacks from infected dens like this
Go to furnish happy homes to-day where ignorance is bliss.

Now the time was come when Ling might take his treasure up, and go
To enjoy celestial comforts by the flowing Hoang Ho,
But one day his shop was raided, and upon him fell the hand
Of the Law—and death were better than the ruthless Law’s command.

‘Room for the leper, room!’ A thing of fear, Ah Ling was torn
From his hovel and his labour and his cherished hopes, and borne
To a home of untold terrors, where to life grim death is wed,
And the quick behold and know the loathly horrors of the dead.


Scheme AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IIJJ KKLL KKGG MMNN
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 10101010101001 10101101110001 00101010001101 111001100010101 101010101110011 101111101110011 101010101010101 11111101111101 0010010101010111 11111010010101 11101011111001 11010101010101 101110101011111 101011101011101 1011100110011 111010101010011 111111100110111 111010100110101 101010101110111 011000110110101 101100111011101 111010111110111 11010111010111 111010111110011 101111111110101 10101010101011 111111100011101 101010101010101 11010101111111 11100110110101 101101101111111 00101010110101
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 2,021
Words 370
Sentences 13
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 50
Words per line (avg) 11
Letters per stanza (avg) 199
Words per stanza (avg) 46
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:51 min read
67

Edward George Dyson

Edward George Dyson, or 'Ted' Dyson, was an Australian journalist, poet, playwright and short story writer. He was the elder brother of illustrators Will Dyson (1880–1938) and Ambrose Dyson (1876–1913), with three sisters also of artistic and literary praise. Dyson wrote under several – some say many – nom-de-plumes, including Silas Snell. In his day, the period of Australia's federation, the poet and writer was 'ranked very closely to Australia's greatest short-story writer, Henry Lawson'. With Lawson known as the 'swagman poet', Ogilvie the 'horseman poet', Dyson was the 'mining poet'. Although known as a freelance writer, he was also considered part of The Bulletin writer group. more…

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