Analysis of Wolverine
Emily Pauline Johnson 1861 – 1913
'Yes, sir, it's quite a story, though you won't believe it's true,
But such things happened often when I lived beyond the Soo.'
And the trapper tilted back his chair and filled his pipe anew.
'I ain't thought of it neither fer this many 'n many a day,
Although it used to haunt me in the years that's slid away,
The years I spent a-trappin' for the good old Hudson's Bay.
'Wild? You bet, 'twas wild then, an' few an' far between
The squatters' shacks, for whites was scarce as furs when things is green,
An' only reds an' 'Hudson's' men was all the folk I seen.
'No. Them old Indyans ain't so bad, not if you treat 'em square.
Why, I lived in amongst 'em all the winters I was there,
An' I never lost a copper, an' I never lost a hair.
'But I'd have lost my life the time that you've heard tell about;
I don't think I'd be settin' here, but dead beyond a doubt,
If that there Indyan 'Wolverine' jest hadn't helped me out.
''Twas freshet time, 'way back, as long as sixty-six or eight,
An' I was comin' to the Post that year a kind of late,
For beaver had been plentiful, and trappin' had been great.
'One day I had been settin' traps along a bit of wood,
An' night was catchin' up to me jest faster 'an it should,
When all at once I heard a sound that curdled up my blood.
'It was the howl of famished wolves-I didn't stop to think
But jest lit out across for home as quick as you could wink,
But when I reached the river's edge I brought up at the brink.
'That mornin' I had crossed the stream straight on a sheet of ice
An' now, God help me! There it was, churned up an' cracked to dice,
The flood went boiling past-I stood like one shut in a vice.
'No way ahead, no path aback, trapped like a rat ashore,
With naught but death to follow, and with naught but death afore;
The howl of hungry wolves aback-ahead, the torrent's roar.
'An' then-a voice, an Indyan voice, that called out clear and clean,
'Take Indyan's horse, I run like deer, wolf can't catch Wolverine.'
I says, 'Thank Heaven.' There stood the chief I'd nicknamed Wolverine.
'I leapt on that there horse, an' then jest like a coward fled,
An' left that Indyan standin' there alone, as good as dead,
With the wolves a-howlin' at his back, the swollen stream ahead.
'I don't know how them Indyans dodge from death the way they do,
You won't believe it, sir, but what I'm tellin' you is true,
But that there chap was 'round next day as sound as me or you.
'He came to get his horse, but not a cent he'd take from me.
Yes, sir, you're right, the Indyans now ain't like they used to be;
We've got 'em sharpened up a bit an'
now
they'll take a fee.
'No, sir, you're wrong, they ain't no 'dogs.' I'm not through tellin' yet;
You'll take that name right back again, or else jest out you get!
You'll take that name right back when you hear all this yarn, I bet.
'It happened that same autumn, when some Whites was comin' in,
I heard the old Red River carts a-kickin' up a din,
So I went over to their camp to see an English skin.
'They said, 'They'd had an awful scare from Injuns,' an' they swore
That savages had come around the very night before
A-brandishing their tomahawks an' painted up for war.
'But when their plucky Englishmen had put a bit of lead
Right through the heart of one of them, an' rolled him over, dead,
The other cowards said that they had come on peace instead.
''That they (the Whites) had lost some stores, from off their little pack,
An' that the Red they peppered dead had followed up their track,
Because he'd found the packages an' came
to give them back
.'
''Oh!' they said, 'they were quite sorry, but it wasn't like as if
They had killed a decent Whiteman by mistake or in a tiff,
It was only some old Injun dog that lay there stark an' stiff.'
'I said, 'You are the meanest dogs that ever yet I seen,'
Then I rolled the body over as it lay out on the green;
I peered into the face-My God! 'twas poor old Wolverine.'
Scheme | AAA BBB CCC DDD EEE FFF GGX HHH III JAJ CCC KKK AAA LLXXL MMM NNN JJJ KKK OOXO PPP CCC |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101110111 11110101110101 001010111011101 1111110111011001 1111110011101 0111011011101 111111111101 01011111111111 1101111110111 1111111111111 11100111010111 111010101110101 11111101111101 1111111110101 111101110111 1111111110111 1111101110111 1101110001111 1111111010111 1111111110111 1111110111111 11011101110111 11110111111111 11110101111101 1111101110111 11111111111111 01110111111001 11011101110101 1111110011111 0111010101011 1101111111101 111111111101 1111011011101 11111111110101 111111011111 10101111010101 1111111110111 1101111111111 11111111111111 11111111011111 1111011111111 111101011 1 1101 1111111111111 11111101111111 11111111111111 1101110111110 1101110101101 11110111111101 1111110111111 11001101010101 0100110110111 1111010110111 11011111111101 01010111111101 11011111111101 11011101110111 0111010011 1111 1 111101101110111 111010101011001 11101111111111 11110101110111 111010101111101 1101011111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 3,850 |
Words | 765 |
Sentences | 34 |
Stanzas | 21 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 67 |
Letters per line (avg) | 43 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 139 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:57 min read
- 92 Views
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"Wolverine" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/12650/wolverine>.
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