Analysis of Truly He Hath A Sweet Bed

Thomas Moult 1893 (Derbyshire) – 1974



Brown earth, sun-soaked,
    Beneath his head
    And over the quiet limbs....
    Through time unreckoned
    Lay this brown earth for him. Now is he come.
    Truly he hath a sweet bed.

The perfume shed
    From invisible gardens is chaliced by kindly airs
    And carried for welcome to the stranger.
    Long seasons ere he came, this wilderness
    They habited.

They, and the mist of stars
    Down-spread
    About him as a hush of vespering birds.
    They, and the sun, the moon:
    Naught now denies him the moon's coming,
    Nor the morning trail of gold,
    The luminous print of evening, red
    At the sun's tread.

The brown earth holds him.
    The stars and little winds, the friendly moon
    And sun attend in turn his rest.
    They linger above him, softly moving. They are gracious,
    And gently-wise: as though remembering how his hunger,
    His kinship, knew them once but blindly
    In thoughts unsaid,
    As a dream that fled.

So is he theirs assuredly as the seasons.
    So is his sleep by them for ever companioned.
    ...And, perchance, by the voices of bright children playing
    And knowing not: by the echo of young laughter
    When their dancing is sped.

Truly he hath a sweet bed.


Scheme abxaxB bxcda xbxefxbb xexdcxbb xafcb B
Poetic Form
Metre 1111 0111 0100101 111 1111111111 1011011 0011 1010010111101 0101101010 1101111100 11 100111 11 011101111 100101 110110110 1010111 010011101 1011 01111 0101010101 01010111 11001110101110 01011101001110 11111110 0101 10111 111101001010 1111111101 0011010111010 010110101110 111011 1011011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,213
Words 199
Sentences 17
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 6, 5, 8, 8, 5, 1
Lines Amount 33
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 145
Words per stanza (avg) 33
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Submitted by naama on July 15, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:00 min read
7

Thomas Moult

Thomas Moult (1893–1974) was a versatile English journalist and writer, and one of the Georgian poets. more…

All Thomas Moult poems | Thomas Moult Books

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