Camouflage

Andrew Barton Paterson 1864 (Orange, New South Wales) – 1941 (Sydney, New South Wales)



Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds
The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds,
"I've got a letter here," he said, "that no one's understood,
Addressed as follows: 'To the bird that's like a piece of wood.'
"The soldier bird got very cross -- it wasn't meant for her;
The spurwing plover had a try to stab me with a spur:
The jackass laughed, and said the thing was written for a lark.
I think I'll chuck this postman job and take to stripping bark."

Then all the birds for miles around came in to lend a hand;
They perched upon a broken limb as thick as they could stand,
And just as old man eaglehawk prepared to have his say
A portion of the broken limb got up and flew away.

Then, casting grammar to the winds, the postman said, "That's him!
The boobook owl -- he squats himself along a broken limb,
And pokes his beak up like a stick; there's not a bird, I vow,
Can tell you which is boobook owl and which is broken bough.

"And that's the thing he calls his nest -- that jerry-built affair --
A bunch of sticks across a fork; I'll leave his letter there.
A cuckoo wouldn't use his nest, but what's the odds to him --
A bird that tries to imitate a piece of leaning limb!"

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:14 min read
79

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCDD EEFF GGHH IIGG
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 1,226
Words 242
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 4, 4, 4

Andrew Barton Paterson

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales, where he spent much of his childhood. Paterson's more notable poems include "Clancy of the Overflow" (1889), "The Man from Snowy River" (1890) and "Waltzing Matilda" (1895), regarded widely as Australia's unofficial national anthem. more…

All Andrew Barton Paterson poems | Andrew Barton Paterson Books

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