Words
Edward Thomas 1878 (London Borough of Lambeth) – 1917 (Pas-de-Calais)
Out of us all
That make rhymes
Will you choose
Sometimes -
As the winds use
A crack in a wall
Or a drain,
Their joy or their pain
To whistle through -
Choose me,
You English words?
I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer:
Strange as the races
Of dead and unborn:
Strange and sweet
Equally,
And familiar,
To the eye,
As the dearest faces
That a man knows,
And as lost homes are:
But though older far
Than oldest yew, -
As our hills are, old, -
Worn new
Again and again:
Young as our streams
After rain:
And as dear
As the earth which you prove
That we love.
Make me content
With some sweetness
From Wales
Whose nightingales
Have no wings, -
From Wiltshire and Kent
And Herefordshire, -
And the villages there, -
From the names, and the things
No less.
Let me sometimes dance
With you,
Or climb
Or stand perchance
In ecstasy,
Fixed and free
In a rhyme,
As poets do.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 105 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABXBXACCDEF DGHIJHFXKLMNJLEMXNKOODIDXGCXXX PXXBQPDXQXRDSREESD |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic dimeter |
Characters | 955 |
Words | 201 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 30, 18 |
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"Words" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9911/words>.
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