In a Breton Cemetery



They sleep well here,
These fisher-folk who passed their anxious days
In fierce Atlantic ways;
And found not there,
Beneath the long curled wave,
So quiet a grave.

And they sleep well,
These peasant-folk, who told their lives away,
From day to market-day,
As one should tell,
With patient industry,
Some sad old rosary.

And now night falls,
Me, tempest-tost, and driven from pillar to post,
A poor worn ghost,
This quiet pasture calls;
And dear dead people with pale hands
Beckon me to their lands.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

26 sec read
113

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAAXBB CDDCEE FGGFHH
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 489
Words 88
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Ernest Christopher Dowson was born in 1867 at Lea in Kent England he was an English poet novelist and writer of short stories associated with the Decadent movement Most of his life was spent in France more…

All Ernest Christopher Dowson poems | Ernest Christopher Dowson Books

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