Analysis of The Trucker
Edward George Dyson 1865 (Ballarat, Victoria) – 1931 (Saint Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria)
IF YOU want a game to tame you and to take your measure in,
Try a week or two of trucking in a mine
Where the rails are never level for a half-a-minute’s spin,
And the curves are short and sharp along the line.
Try the feverish bottom level, down five hundred feet of shaft,
Where the atmosphere is like a second suit,
When the wash is full of water, and you’ve got to run the graft,
For there’s forty ton of gravel in the shoot.
‘Want a job o’ truckin’, dost tha?’ says the boss, old Geordie Rist,
Shift’s a trucker short, ma lad, but aw don’ know—
Can’st tha do th’ work, though, think’st tha? Art a pretty decent fist?
Eh, well, damme! thoo can try it; go below.’
So the cage is manned, the knocker clangs and clatters on the brace,
The engine draws a deep, defiant breath
To inflate her lungs of iron; and in silence, face to face,
We drop into the darkness deep as death.
Then a fairy sense of lightness and of floating on the night,
A sudden glare, and Number Three is passed;
Soon a sound of warring waters and another rush of light—
‘All clear!’ The up-trip never seems so fast.
It is rough upon the tyro, that first tussle with the trucks—
The wretched four, with worn, three-cornered wheels
That are sure to fall to his lot and to floor him if his pluck’s
Not true when mates are grinding at his heels.
Then the struggle at the incline, and the deuced ticklish squeeze
At the curves where strength alone not all avails,
And the floundering in the mullock, and the badly-broken knees
Before he learns to run upon the rails.
But it’s like all other grafting, and the man that has the grit
Won’t tucker out with one back-racking shift;
When he’s sweated to condition, with his muscles firm and fit,
He’ll disdain to stick at seven trucks of drift.
He can swarm around the pinches with a scramble and a dash,
And negotiate the inclines just as pat;
And the sheets of iron rattle and the waters surge and splash
As he shoots the 'full ’uns' in along the plat.
When the empties wind and clatter down the drive and through the dark—
As ‘blowing’ spells those backward journeys serve—
On before, deep set in darkness, glints and glows a feeble spark,
The candle burning dimly at the curve.
After cribs are polished off, and when the smoke begins to rise
And cling about the caps and in the cracks,
There’s a passing satisfaction in the patriarchal lies
Of the Geordie pioneers and Cousin Jacks—
Lanky Steve’s unwritten stories of the fun of Fifty-two,
Or the dashing days at Donkey Woman’s Flat,
Of traps, and beaks, and heavy yields, and pugilists put through,
And lifting up the flag at Ballarat.
Yes, the truckers’ toil is rather heavy grafting as a rule—
Much heavier than the wages, well I know;
But the life’s not full of trouble, and the fellow is a fool
Who cannot find some pleasure down below.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MGMX NONO PQPC RSRS TUTU VQVC WFWF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (92%) |
Metre | 111011110111100 10111110001 101110101010101 00111010101 1010010101110111 1010110101 101111100111101 11101110001 101111110111001 10101111111 1111111111010101 1111111101 1011101101101 0101010101 101011100010111 1101010111 101011100110101 0101010111 101110100010111 1101110111 11101011110101 0101111101 111111110111111 1111110111 101010010011001 1011101111 001000010010101 0111110101 111110100011101 1101111101 111010101110101 10111110111 11101011010001 0010001111 001110100010101 11101100101 101010101010101 1101110101 101110101010101 0101010101 101110101010111 0101010001 1010010000101 10100010101 101010101011101 1010111011 110101010111 01010111 101011101010101 11001010111 101111100010101 1101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,832 |
Words | 526 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 52 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 167 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:37 min read
- 66 Views
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"The Trucker" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9611/the-trucker>.
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