The Boundary Rider Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IIJJ KKDD LLMM NNOO PPDD| The bridle reins hang loose in the hold of his lean left hand | A |
| As the tether gives the horse bends browsing down to the sand | A |
| On the pommel the right hand rests with a smoking briar black | B |
| Whose thin rings rise and break as he gazes from the track | B |
| - | |
| Already the sun is aslope high still in a pale hot sky | C |
| And the afternoon is fierce in its glare the wide plains lie | C |
| Empty as heaven and silent smit with a vast despair | D |
| The face of a Titan bound for whom is no hope nor care | D |
| - | |
| Hoar are its leagues of bush and tawny brown is its soil | E |
| In that immensity lost are human effort and toil | E |
| A few scattered sheep in the scrub hardly themselves to be seen | F |
| One man in the wilderness lone beside a primaeval scene | F |
| - | |
| Firm and upright in his saddle as a soldier upon parade | G |
| Yet graceful too is his seat for Nature this horseman made | G |
| From childhood a fearless rider now like a centaur he | H |
| And half of his strength is gone when he jumps from the saddle tree | H |
| - | |
| Back from his sweat wet hair his felt is carelessly placed | I |
| Handkerchief at his throat sagging shirt round a lank firm waist | I |
| True to the set of strong loins the belted moleskins are tight | J |
| Plain from forehead to stirrup a virile vigour in sight | J |
| - | |
| Yet scarce more than a boy but the long blaze not more sure | K |
| Has left on the countenance spare a hue that shall ever endure | K |
| Than the life of the plains has set reliance and courage there | D |
| Constancy manliness frank in a young face debonair | D |
| - | |
| He should be no less who rides for ever each spacious bound | L |
| Better than human speech he knows the desert around | L |
| He journeys from dawn to dusk and always he rides alone | M |
| The hue of the wilderness takes as his mind its monotone | M |
| - | |
| He hears the infrequent cries shrieking or hoarse and slow | N |
| Sheep bleating the minah's scream the monologue of the crow | N |
| He rides in a manless land and in leagues of the salt bush plain | O |
| Seeks day after day for change and seeks it ever in vain | O |
| - | |
| In his hands his life each morn as he swings to his leathern seat | P |
| Woe to him if he falls where as water the plain sucks heat | P |
| Alone in a vast still tomb cruel and loth to spare | D |
| Death waits for each sense and slays whilst the doomed wretch feels despair | D |
Thomas William Heney
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