Analysis of Shifting Sand
Charles Henry Souter 1864 – 1944
Do you see that post a-stickin in the sand?
Just the point of it a-poking thro' the sand?
Me and Madge put in that fence.
Yes! We should have had more sense!
We was young, you see, and didn't understand.
Twenty years come next November we began;
There was nothing here but scrub when we began --
Sold the farm on 'Dingo Flat,'
And put all we had in that!
Into blasted shifting sand and 'Take-all pan.'
This here paddick--which? Why where you're standing now
(Oh! it was one, tho' you wouldn't think so now!)
Well, we grubbed it, nice and neat,
And we gut it in with wheat;
And we didn't reap enough to feed the cow!
In the early spring the sand began to shift ---
In a 'Norther' have you ever seen it shift?
Well, it all went in a night,
Not a blade was left in sight
When we come to look next morning at the drift!
Round the back there, by them stunted pepper-trees;
Hardly anything will live here but them trees.
Madge is lying there, asleep,
With the sand above her, deep:
Deep and loose enough to sink you to the knees!
Many other things are buried on the land,
Things you can't get back from any kind of land,
Youth and hope, and tears and sweat,
Wasted work and vain regret,
In the sneaking, creeping, greedy, shifting sand!
Scheme | AABBA CCDDC EEFFE GGHHG IIJJI AAKKA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (27%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111101001 10111010101 1011011 1111111 1111101001 10111010101 11101111101 1011101 0111101 01101010111 1111111101 11111110111 1111101 0111011 01101011101 00101010111 00101110111 1111001 1011101 11111110101 10111110101 1010111111 1110101 1010101 10101111101 10101110101 11111110111 1010101 1010101 00101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,245 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 155 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 77 Views
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"Shifting Sand" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5228/shifting-sand>.
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