A Song Of Brave Men Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEEFF GGHHII IIJJKK AALLMM IIIINN IIIIOO PPQQRS TUVVWW XXIIYY

Man is the Sea your master Sea and is man your slaveA
This is the song of brave men who never know they are braveA
Ceaselessly watching to save you stranger from foreign landsB
Soundly asleep in your state room full sail for the Goodwin SandsB
Life is a dream they tell us but life seems very realC
When the lifeboat puts out from Ramsgate and the buggers put out from DealC
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A gun from the lightship a rocket a cry of Turn out me ladD
Ship on the Sands they're shouting and a rush of the oilskin cladD
The lifeboat leaping and swooping in the wake of the fighting tugE
And the luggers afloat in Hell's water Oh tourist with cushion and rugE
Think of the freezing fury without one minute's reliefF
When they stood all night in the blackness by the wreck of the Indian ChiefF
-
Lashed to their seats and crouching to the spray that froze as it flewG
Twenty six hours in midwinter That was the lifeboat's crewG
Twice she was swamped and she righted in the rush of the heavy seasH
And her tug was mostly buried but these were common things theseH
And the luggers go out whenever there's a hope to get them afloatI
And these things they do for nothing and those fishermen say Oh it's nowtI
-
Enemy Friend or Stranger In every sea or landI
And across the lives of most men run stretches of Goodwin SandI
And across the life of a nation as across the track of a shipJ
Lies the hidden rock or the iceberg within the horizon dipJ
And wise men know them and warn us with lightship or voice or penK
But we strike and the fool survivors sail on to strike againK
-
But this is a song of brave men wherever is aught to saveA
Christian or Jew or Wowser and I knew one who was braveA
British or French or German Dane or Latin or DutchL
Scandies that ignorant British reckon with Dagoes and suchL
Where'er on a wreck titanic in a scene of wild despairM
The officers call for assistance a Swede or a Norse is thereM
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Tale of a wreck titanic with the last boat over the sideI
And a brave young husband fighting his clinging hysterical brideI
He strikes her fair on the temple while the decks are scarce afloatI
And he kisses her once on the forehead and he drops her into the boatI
So he goes to his death to save her and she lives to remember and lieN
Or be true to his love and courage But that's how brave men dieN
-
I hate the slander Be British and I don't believe it that's flatI
No British sailor and captain would stoop to such cant as thatI
What in the rush of cowards of the help from before the mastI
Of the two big Swedes and the Norse who stood by the mate to the lastI
In every mining disaster in a New World mining townO
In one of the rescue parties an Olsen or Hans goes downO
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Men who fought for their village away on their country's edgeP
The priest with his cross and a musket and the blacksmith with his sledgeP
The butcher with cleaver and pistols and the notary with his pikeQ
And the clerk with what he laid hands on but all were ready to strikeQ
And Tennyson notwithstanding when the hour of danger was comeR
The shopman has struck full often with his cheating yard wand homeS
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This is a song of brave men ever the wide world o'erT
Starved and crippled and murdered by the land they are fighting forU
Left to freeze in the trenches sent to drown by the CapeV
Throttled by army contractors and strangled bv old red tapeV
Fighting for Home and Country or Glory or what you chooseW
Sacrificed for the Syndicates and a monarch in with the JewsW
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Australia your trial is coming Down with the party strifeX
Send Your cackling lying women back to the old Home LifeX
Brush trom your Parliament benches the legal chaff and dustI
Make Federation perfect as sooner or later you mustI
Scatter your crowded cities cut up your States and soY
Give your brave sons of the future the ghost of a White Man's showY

Henry Lawson



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