Analysis of April Byeway
Edmund Blunden 1896 (London) – 1974 (Long Melford)
Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
Be with me travelling on the byeway now
In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow
Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:
And we will mark in his white smock the mill
Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind,
That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still;
But now there is not any grain to grind,
And even the master lies too deep for winds to find.
Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain
With lusty sails that leap and drop away
On further knolls, and lads to fetch the grain.
The ash-spit wickets on the green betray
New games begun and old ones put away.
Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend,
Where under his old hat as green as moss
The hedger chops and finds new gaps to mend,
And on his bonfires burns the thorns and dross,
And hums a hymn, the best, thinks he, that ever was.
There the grey guinea-fowl stands in the way,
The young black heifer and the raw-ribbed mare,
And scorn to move for tumbril or for dray,
And feel themselves as good as farmers there.
From the young corn the prick-eared leverets stare
At strangers come to spy the land — small sirs,
We bring less danger than the very breeze
Who in great zig-zag blows the bee, and whirs
In bluebell shadow down the bright green leas;
From whom in frolic fit the chopt straw darts and flees.
The cornel steepling up in white shall know
The two friends passing by, and poplar smile
All gold within; the church-top fowl shall glow
To lure us on, and we shall rest awhile
Where the wild apple blooms above the stile;
The yellow frog beneath blinks up half bold,
Then scares himself into the deeper green.
And thus spring was for you in days of old,
And thus will be when I too walk unseen
By one that thinks me friend, the best that there has been.
All our lone journey laughs for joy, the hours
Like honey-bees go home in new-found light
Past the cow pond amazed with twinkling flowers
And antique chalk-pit newly delved to white,
Or idle snow-plough nearly hid from sight.
The blackbird sings us home, on a sudden peers
The round tower hung with ivy's blackened chains,
Then past the little green the byeway veers,
The mill-sweeps torn, the forge with cobwebbed panes
That have so many years looked out across the plains.
But the old forge and mill are shut and done,
The tower is crumbling down, stone by stone falls;
An ague doubt comes creeping in the sun,
The sun himself shudders, the day appals,
The concourse of a thousand tempests sprawls
Over the blue-lipped lakes and maddening groves,
Like agonies of gods the clouds are whirled,
The stormwind like the demon huntsman roves —
Still stands my friend, though all's to chaos hurled,
The unseen friend, the one last friend in all the world.
Scheme | ABABBCDCDD BEXEEAFAFX EGEGGFHFHH IJIJJKLKLX MNMNNOPOPP QRQFRXSFSS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111011101 1111001011 01010110111 10111111 1111001011 0111011101 1001111101 1011010111 1111110111 0100101111111 111111111 1101110101 1101011101 0111010101 1101011101 111111111 1101111111 0101011111 0111010101 010101111101 1011011001 0111000111 011111111 0101111101 101101111 1101110111 1111010101 1011110101 01110111 110101011101 010110111 0111010101 1101011111 1111011101 1011010101 0101011111 1101010101 0111110111 0111111101 111111011111 110110111010 1101110111 101101110010 0011110111 1101110111 01011110101 0110111101 110101011 011101111 111101110101 1011011101 010110011111 111110001 010110011 01101011 10011101001 1100110111 011010101 1111111101 001101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,739 |
Words | 517 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 366 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 86 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:36 min read
- 39 Views
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"April Byeway" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9115/april-byeway>.
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