In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad
Alfred Edward Housman 1859 – 1936
In my own shire, if I was sad,
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,
Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:
Whether in the woodland brown
I heard the beechnut rustle down,
And saw the purple crocus pale
Flower about the autumn dale;
Or littering far the fields of May
Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,
And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.
Yonder, lightening other loads,
The seasons range the country roads,
But here in London streets I ken
No such helpmates, only men;
And these are not in plight to bear,
If they would, another's care.
They have enough as 'tis: I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;
And till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 23, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 86 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHII JJKKLLMMNNOOPP |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,045 |
Words | 194 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 18, 14 |
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"In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/886/in-my-own-shire,-if-i-was-sad>.
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