Analysis of Jonah’s Luck
Edward George Dyson 1865 (Ballarat, Victoria) – 1931 (Saint Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria)
OUT OF LUCK, mate? Have a liquor. Hang it, where’s the use complaining?
Take your fancy, I’m in funds now—I can stand the racket, Dan.
Dump your bluey in the corner; camp here for the night, it’s raining;
Bet your life I’m glad to see you—glad to see a Daylesford man.
Swell? Correct, Dan. Spot the get up; and I own this blooming shanty,
Me the fellows christened ‘Jonah’ at Jim Crow and Blanket Flat,
’Cause my luck was so infernal—you remember me and Canty?
Rough times, those—the very memory keeps a chap from getting fat.
Where’d I strike it? That’s a yarn. The fire’s a comfort—sit up nearer.
Hoist your heels, man; take it easy till Kate’s ready with the stew.
Yes, I’ll tell my little story; ’tain’t a long one, but it’s queerer
Than those lies that Tullock pitched us on The Flat in ’52.
Fancy Phil a parson now! He’s smug as grease, the Reverend Tullock.
Yes, he’s big—his wife and fam’ly are a high and mighty lot.
Didn’t I say his jaw would keep him when he tired of punching mullock?
Well, it has—he’s made his pile here. How d’you like your whisky—hot?
Luck! Well, now, I like your cheek, Dan. You had luck, there’s no denying.
I in thirty years had averaged just a wage of twenty bob—
Why, at Alma there I saw men making fortunes without trying,
While for days I lived on ’possums, and then had to take a job.
Bah! you talk about misfortune—my ill-luck was always thorough:
Gold once ran away before me if I chased it for a week.
I was starved at Tarrangower—lived on tick at Maryborough—
And I fell and broke my thigh-bone at the start of Fiery Creek.
At Avoca Canty left me. Jim, you know, was not a croaker,
But he jacked the whole arrangement—found we couldn’t make a do:
Said he loved me like a brother, but ’twas rough upon a joker
When he’d got to fight the devil, and find luck enough for two.
Jim was off. I didn’t blame him, seeing what he’d had to suffer
When Maginnis, just beside us, panned out fifty to the tub.
‘We had pegged out hours before him, and had struck another duffer,
And each store upon the lead, my lad, had laid us up for grub.
After that I picked up Barlow, but we parted at Dunolly
When we’d struggled through at Alma, Adelaide Lead, and Ararat.
See, my luck was hard upon him; he contracted melancholy,
And he hung himself one morning in the shaft at Parrot Flat.
Ding it? No. Where gold was getting I was on the job, and early,—
Struck some tucker dirt at Armstrong’s, and just lived at Pleasant Creek,
Always grafting like a good ’un, never hopeless-like or surly,
Living partly on my earnings, Dan, but largely on my cheek.
Good old days, they like to call them—they were tough old days to many:
I was through them, and they left me still the choice to graft or beg—
Left me gray, and worn, and wrinkled, aged and stumped—without a penny—
With a chronic rheumatism and this darned old twisted leg.
Other work? That’s true—in plenty. But you know the real old stager
Who has followed up the diggings, how he hangs on to the pan,
How he hates to leave the pipeclay. Though you mention it I’ll wager
That you never worked on top until you couldn’t help it, Dan.
Years went by. On many fields I worked, and often missed a meal, and
Then I found Victoria played out, and the yields were very slack,
So I took a turn up Northward, tried Tasmania and New Zealand,—
Dan, I worked my passage over, and I sneaked the journey back.
Times were worse. I made a cradle, and went fossicking old places;
But the Chows had been before me, and had scraped the country bare;
There was talk of splendid patches ’mongst the creeks and round the races,
But ’twas not my luck to strike them, and I think I lived on air.
Rough? That’s not the word. So help me, Dan, I hadn’t got a stiver
‘When I caved in one fine Sunday—found I couldn’t lift my head.
They removed me, and the doctor said I’d got rheumatic fever,
And for seven months I lingered in a ward upon a bed.
Came out crippled, feeling done-up, hopeless-like and very lonely,
And dead-beat right down to bed rock as I’d never felt before.
Bitter? Just! Those hopeful years of honest graft had left me only
This bent leg; and some asylum was the prospect I’d in store.
You’ll be knowing how I felt then—cleaned-out, lame, completely gravelled—
All the friends I’d known were scattered widely north, and east, and west:
There seemed nothing there for my sort, and no chances if I travelled;
No, my digging days were over, and I had to give it best.
Though ’twas hard, I tried to meet it like a man in digger fashion:
’Twasn’t good enough—I funked it; I was fairly on the shelf,
Cursed my bitter fortune daily, and was a
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEXXGAG AHAHIJIJ EFEFEKEK XGCDCJCJ CLCLEBEB MNMNOPOP EQEQCRCR CSXSXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111101011101010 111010111110101 1110001011101110 11111111111011 1011101101111010 101010101110101 1111101010101010 1110101001011101 11111010100101110 111111101110101 1111101010111110 111110111010 10101011111010010 11111011010101 1111111111101101 111111111111101 1111111111111010 101011101011101 1110111110100110 111111100111101 111010101111110 111010111111101 1111111111 0110111110111001 11101111111010 11101010111101 1111101011101010 111110100110111 111111110111110 110010111110101 11111001101101010 011010111111111 1011111111011 11101110101010 111110111100100 011011100011101 1111111011101010 11101110111101 110101110101110 101011101110111 1111111110111110 111101111011111 1110101010101010 10101000111101 1011101011101110 11101011111101 111110111101110 11101110111111 1111101110101010 1110100110010101 1110111011000110 111110100110101 10111010011110 101110110110101 1111101010101010 111111110111111 111011111111010 1110111111111 1011001011101010 011011100010101 1110101110101010 011111111110101 1011101110111110 111010101010101 111011111110101 101110101010101 1110111101101110 111010100111111 1111111110101010 11011111110101 11101010010 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 4,680 |
Words | 863 |
Sentences | 56 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7 |
Lines Amount | 71 |
Letters per line (avg) | 49 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 390 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 96 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 4:19 min read
- 54 Views
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"Jonah’s Luck" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9566/jonah%E2%80%99s-luck>.
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