Exmoor Verses

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch 1863 (Bodmin, Cornwall) – 1944 (Cornwall)



I. VASHTI'S SONG

Over the rim of the Moor,
And under the starry sky,
Two men came to my door
And rested them thereby.

Beneath the bough and the star,
In a whispering foreign tongue,
They talked of a land afar
And the merry days so young!

Beneath the dawn and the bough
I heard them arise and go:
And my heart it is aching now
For the more it will never know.

Why did they two depart
Before I could understand?
Where lies that land, O my heart?
-O my heart, where lies that land?

II. SATURN

From my farm, from hèr farm
Furtively we came.
In either home a hearth was warm:
We nursed a hungrier flame.

Our feet were foul with mire,
Our faces blind with mist;
But all the night was naked fire
About us where we kiss'd.

To her farm, to my farm,
Loathing we returned;
Pale beneath a gallow's arm
The planet Saturn burned.

III. DERELICTION

O'er the tears that we shed, dear
The bitter vines twist,
And the hawk and the red deer
They keep where we kiss'd:
All broken lies the shieling
That sheltered from rain,
With a star to pierce the ceiling,
And the dawn an empty pane.

Thro' the mist, up the moorway,
Fade hunters and pack;
From the ridge to thy doorway
Happy voices float back…
O, between the threads o' mist, love,
Reach your hands from the house.
Only mind that we kiss'd, love,
And forget the broken vows!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

1:17 min read
131

Quick analysis:

Scheme A XBXB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJXJ XKXK ILIL MKMKANXN OPOPQXQX
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,271
Words 253
Stanzas 10
Stanza Lengths 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8, 8

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was a Cornish writer who published using the pseudonym Q. more…

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