How The Land Was Won Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJHKHK ALALMNMN OPOPQRSR TUVULNLN GUGUWNXN YZA2ZVB2HB2

The future was dark and the past was deadA
As they gazed on the sea once moreB
But a nation was born when the immigrants saidA
Good bye as they stepped ashoreB
In their loneliness they were parted thusC
Because of the work to doD
A wild wide land to be won for usC
By hearts and hands so fewD
-
The darkest land 'neath a blue sky's domeE
And the widest waste on earthF
The strangest scenes and the least like homeE
In the lands of our fathers' birthF
The loneliest land in the wide world thenG
And away on the furthest seasH
A land most barren of life for menG
And they won it by twos and threesH
-
With God or a dog to watch they sleptI
By the camp fires' ghastly glowJ
Where the scrubs were dark as the blacks that creptI
With nulla and spear held lowJ
Death was hidden amongst the treesH
And bare on the glaring sandK
They fought and perished by twos and threesH
And that's how they won the landK
-
It was two that failed by the dry creek bedA
While one reeled on aloneL
The dust of Australia's greatest deadA
With the dust of the desert blownL
Gaunt cheek bones cracking the parchment skinM
That scorched in the blazing sunN
Black lips that broke in a ghastly grinM
And that's how the land was wonN
-
Starvation and toil on the tracks they wentO
And death by the lonely wayP
The childbirth under the tilt or tentO
The childbirth under the drayP
The childbirth out in the desolate hutQ
With a half wild gin for nurseR
That's how the first were born to bearS
The brunt of the first man's curseR
-
They toiled and they fought through the shame of itT
Through wilderness flood and droughtU
They worked in the struggles of early daysV
Their sons' salvation outU
The white girl wife in the hut aloneL
The men on the boundless runN
The miseries suffered unvoiced unknownL
And that's how the land was wonN
-
No armchair rest for the old folk thenG
But ruined by blight and droughtU
They blazed the tracks to the camps againG
In the big scrubs further outU
The worn haft wet with a father's sweatW
Gripped hard by the eldest sonN
The boy's back formed to the hump of toilX
And that's how the land was wonN
-
And beyond Up Country beyond Out BackY
And the rainless belt they rideZ
The currency lad and the ne'er do wellA2
And the black sheep side by sideZ
In wheeling horizons of endless hazeV
That disk through the Great North westB2
They ride for ever by twos and by threesH
And that's how they win the restB2

Henry Lawson



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