Analysis of The Bulletin Hotel
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
I was drifting in the drizzle past the Cecil in the Strand—
Which, I’m told, is very tony—and its front looks very grand;
And I somehow fell a-thinking of a pub I know so well,
Of a palace in Australia called The Bulletin Hotel.
Just a little six-room’d shanty built of corrugated tin,
And all round a blazing desert—land of camels, thirst and sin;
And the landlord is ‘the Spider’— Western diggers know him well—
Charlie Webb!—Ah, there you have it!—of the Bulletin Hotel.
’Tis a big soft-hearted spider in a land where life is grim,
And a web of great good-nature that brings worn-out flies to him:
’Tis the club of many lost souls in the wide Westralian hell,
And the stage of many Mitchells is the Bulletin Hotel.
But the swagman, on his uppers, pulls an undertaker’s mug,
And he leans across the counter and he breathes in Charlie’s lug—
Tale of thirst and of misfortune. Charlie knows it, and—ah, well!
But it’s very bad for business at the Bulletin Hotel.
‘What’s a drink or two?’ says Charlie, ‘and you can’t refuse a feed;’
But there’s many a drink unpaid for, many sticks of ‘borrowed’ weed;
And the poor old spineless bummer and the broken-hearted swell
Know that they are sure of tucker at the Bulletin Hotel.
There’s the liquor and the license and the ‘carriage’ and the rent,
And the sea or grave ’twixt Charlie and the fivers he has lent;
And I’m forced to think in sorrow, for I know the country well,
That the end will be the bailiff in the Bulletin Hotel.
But he’ll pack up in a hurry and he’ll seek a cooler clime,
If I make a rise in England and I get out there in time.
For a mate o’ mine is Charlie and I stayed there for a spell,
And I owe more than a jingle to the Bulletin Hotel.
But there’s lots of graft between us, there are many miles of sea,
So, if you should drop on Charlie, just shake hands with him for me;
Say I think the Bush less lonely than the great town where I dwell,
And—a grander than the Cecil is the Bulletin Hotel.
Scheme | AABBCCBB DDBB EEBB FFBB GGBB DXBB HHBB |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111000101010001 111110100111101 01110101011111 101000101010001 10101110111001 011010101110101 00110101010111 101111111010001 101110100011111 001111101111111 1011101100111 00111011010001 10111101111 01101010011011 111010101011011 111011101010001 001111100110101 111001011101111 001110100010101 111111101010001 101000100010001 00111110001111 011110101110101 101110100010001 111100100110101 111010100111101 101111100111101 011110101010001 111110111110111 111111101111111 111011101011111 001010101010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 2,018 |
Words | 376 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 47 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 215 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:52 min read
- 109 Views
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"The Bulletin Hotel" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17962/the-bulletin-hotel>.
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