From: Dedicatory Ode

Hilaire Belloc 1870 (La Celle-Saint-Cloud) – 1953



I will not try the reach again,
I will not set my sail alone,
To moor a boat bereft of men
At Yarnton's tiny docks of stone.

But I will sit beside the fire,
And put my hand before my eyes,
And trace, to fill my heart's desire,
The last of all our Odysseys.

The quiet evening kept her tryst:
Beneath an open sky we rode,
And passed into a wandering mist
Along the perfect Evenlode.

The tender Evenlode that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground.

A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,
Forgotten in the western wolds.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 10, 2023

38 sec read
145

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EXEE FGFG BXBD
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 634
Words 126
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Hilaire Belloc

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902, but kept his French citizenship. more…

All Hilaire Belloc poems | Hilaire Belloc Books

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