An Old Song.

Edward Shanks 1892 (London) – 1953



The wild duck fly over
From river to river
And so the young lover
Goes roving for ever.
  
They fly together,
He walks alone:
No maiden can tether
Him with her moan.
  
At the bursting of blossom
On her breast his head;
He has left her bosom
Ere the apples are red.
  
Across the valley,
Singing he goes.
In highway and alley
He seeks a new rose.
  
Tell me, O maidens,
You who all day
In lyrical cadence
Dance and play,
  
Why do you proffer
Your sweets to one,
Who takes all you offer
And leaves you to moan?
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

31 sec read
2

Quick analysis:

Scheme AAAA ABAB CDCD EFEF XGXG AXAB
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 487
Words 104
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Edward Shanks

Edward Richard Buxton Shanks was an English writer, known as a war poet of World War I, then as an academic and journalist, and literary critic and biographer. He also wrote some science fiction. He was born in London, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He passed his B.A. in History in 1913. He was editor of Granta from 1912-13. He served in World War I with the British Army in France, but was invalided out in 1915, and did administrative work until war's end. He was later a literary reviewer, working for the London Mercury and for a short while a lecturer at the University of Liverpool. He was the chief leader-writer for the Evening Standard from 1928 to 1935. The People of the Ruins was a science-fiction novel in which a man wakes after being put into suspended animation, to discover a devastated Britain. more…

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    "An Old Song." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/55052/an-old-song.>.

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    Lewis Carroll wrote: "You are old father William, the young man said..."
    A "and your eyes have become less bright"
    B "and you seem to have lost your sight"
    C "and you're going to die tonight"
    D "and your hair has become very white"