Analysis of On Reading Ballads
Arthur Graeme West 1891 – 1917
We lay upon a flowery hill
Close by the railway lines,
Apollo dusted gold on us
Between the windy pines.
We watched the London trains go by
Full of the weary folk,
Who travelled back that Sunday night
To six more days of smoke.
They stared out at the whirling fields,
And when they saw us two,
They turned their heads to follow us
Till we were snatched from view.
The year was at the summer’s spring
When grass grows fresh and long,
And flowers are more in bud than bloom,
And cuckoos slacken song.
The sainfoin and the purple vetch
Nodding above our lair
Sighed on the western breeze, whose might
Could barely stir our hair.
The hawkweed on our ballad book
Sprinkled its pollen fine,
And now and then a beetle dropped
And wandered through a line.
“Sir Patrick Spens” we loitered down,
“Tam Lin” and “Young Beichan,”
And almost felt the sunshine weep
For the “Lass of Lochroyan.”
Stanza on stanza endlessly
From her lips or from mine
Benumbed our dreaming souls, like drops
Of a Circean wine.
I watched her while she read to me,
As children watch their nurse,
Until my being throbbed to hear
This solitary verse:
“O western wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ! That my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!”
This little verse cut thorugh the twists
Of the dream-twinèd spell,
And “Robin Hood” sank back again
With the “Wife of Usher’s Well.”
And an illimitable desire
Quickened our souls with pain.
We knew that we were still at one
With the people in the train.
Scheme | XABA XCDC XEBE XFXF XGDG XHXH XHXH IHXH IJXJ XKXL XMLM XKXK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (83%) |
Metre | 110101001 11011 01010111 010101 11010111 110101 1101111 111111 11110101 011111 11111101 110111 01110101 111101 010110111 010101 0100101 1001101 11010111 1101101 01110101 101101 01010101 010101 1101111 11011 011011 10111 10110100 101111 11010111 1011 11011111 110111 01110111 11001 11011111 1011111 11110011 0101101 11011101 101111 01011101 1011101 011010 1010111 11110111 1010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,494 |
Words | 283 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 98 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 28 Views
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"On Reading Ballads" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42656/on-reading-ballads>.
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