The Skyline Riders Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFEGHGHFIFI JKJKLMNM OIOIIOIO IPIPQRIR ISTSUVIV WXWXYIUI ZA2ZA2B2IB2IAgainst the light of a dawning white | A |
My Skyline Riders stand | B |
There is trouble ahead for a dark year dead | C |
And the selfish wrongs of a land | B |
There are hurrying feet of fools to repeat | D |
The follies of Nineteen Eight | E |
But darkly still on each distant hill | F |
My riders watch and wait | E |
My Skyline Riders are down and gone | G |
As far as the eye can see | H |
And the horses stand in the shades of dawn | G |
Where a single man holds three | H |
We feel the flush and we feel the thrill | F |
Of the coming of Nineteen Nine | I |
For my Skyline Riders are over the hill | F |
And into the firing line | I |
- | |
The skyline lifts while a storm cloud lowers | J |
What s that A shot All s well | K |
There is news out there for this land of ours | J |
That the tattling rifles tell | K |
A thud and a thud and a flash like blood | L |
There is light on the land at last | M |
Australian guns on the nearer hills | N |
Are talking about the past | M |
- | |
O a lonely place in the days gone by | O |
Was the long first firing line | I |
Where we fought as strangers you and I | O |
For the land that was yours and mine | I |
There was time to dream in the firing line | I |
There was time to starve and die | O |
When the only things in that world of mine | I |
Were my Native Land and I | O |
- | |
O a lonely place was the firing line | I |
When the gaps were wide between | P |
Hundreds of miles in this land of mine | I |
And never a soldier seen | P |
The dying must die and the dead were left | Q |
Unmarked by the deadly tired | R |
When struck to the heart in a firing line | I |
Where never a shot was fired | R |
- | |
O a lonely place was the firing line | I |
In the days of the dearth of men | S |
But hundreds and hundreds of soldiers sons | T |
Have flocked to the line since then | S |
We left it weak in the hour of pride | U |
When our rule seemed firmly set | V |
But danger threatened the firing line | I |
And there s deadly danger yet | V |
- | |
Proud of virtue and proud of sin | W |
Or proud neath a cruel wrong | X |
Proud in failure or proud to win | W |
Oh the pride of man is strong | X |
Proud of gold or of being without | Y |
Or proud of women and wine | I |
But get you down from your horse of pride | U |
And into the firing line | I |
- | |
Pride in poverty all the same | Z |
There s work for all men to do | A2 |
With wrong to fight there is deathless fame | Z |
To win in a land so new | A2 |
Preacher and drunkard and sportsman and bard | B2 |
In the dawning of Nineteen Nine | I |
Saints and sinners ride hard ride hard | B2 |
They are pressed in the Firing Line | I |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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