Analysis of We'll go No More A-Roving

William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)



We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June.
The summer flowers are faded, the summer thoughts are sere.
We'll go no more a-roving, lest worse befall, my dear.

We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
The song we sang rings hollow, and heavy runs the tune.
Glad ways and words remembered would shame the wretched year.
We'll go no more a-roving, nor dream we did, my dear.

We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
If yet we walk together, we need not shun the noon.
No sweet thing left to savour, no sad thing left to fear,
We'll go no more a-roving, but weep at home, my dear.


Scheme Aabb Aabb Aabb
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1111010101101 0101110010111 01010110010111 1111010110111 1111010101101 0111110010101 1101010110101 1111010111111 1111010101101 1111010111101 111111111111 1111010111111
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 655
Words 130
Sentences 12
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 41
Words per line (avg) 11
Letters per stanza (avg) 166
Words per stanza (avg) 43
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

40 sec read
121

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". more…

All William Ernest Henley poems | William Ernest Henley Books

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