Ken

Charlotte Mary Mew 1869 (Bloomsbury, London) – 1928 (London)



The town is old and very steep
    A place of bells and cloisters and grey towers,
And black-clad people walking in their sleep—
     A nun, a priest, a woman taking flowers
     To her new grave; and watched from end to end
     By the great Church above, through the still hours:
         But in the morning and the early dark
The children wake to dart from doors and call
Down the wide, crooked street, where, at the bend,
         Before it climbs up to the park,
Ken's is in the gabled house facing the Castle wall.
 
When first I came upon him there
Suddenly, on the half-lit stair,
I think I hardly found a trace
Of likeness to a human face
     In his. And I said then
If in His image God made men,
Some other must have made poor Ken—
But for his eyes which looked at you
As two red, wounded stars might do.
 
He scarcely spoke, you scarcely heard,
His voice broke off in little jars
To tears sometimes. An uncouth bird
     He seemed as he ploughed up the street,
Groping, with knarred, high-lifted feet
     And arms thrust out as if to beat
          Always against a threat of bars.
 
     And oftener than not there'd be
     A child just higher than his knee
Trotting beside him. Through his dim
     Long twilight this, at least, shone clear,
     That all the children and the deer,
        Whom every day he went to see
Out in the park, belonged to him.
 
         "God help the folk that next him sits
         He fidgets so, with his poor wits,"
The neighbours said on Sunday nights
When he would go to Church to "see the lights!"
     Although for these he used to fix                                                          
     His eyes upon a crucifix
     In a dark corner, staring on
    Till everybody else had gone.
    And sometimes, in his evil fits,
You could not move him from his chair—
You did not look at him as he sat there,
     Biting his rosary to bits.
While pointing to the Christ he tried to say,
    "Take it away".
 
     Nothing was dead:
He said "a bird" if he picked up a broken wing,
     A perished leaf or any such thing
     Was just "a rose"; and once when I had said
  He must not stand and knock there any more,
  He left a twig on the mat outside my door.
 
     Not long ago
The last thrush stiffened in the snow,
    While black against a sullen sky
       The sighing pines stood by.
But now the wind has left our rattled pane
To flutter the hedge-sparrow's wing,
The birches in the wood are red again
       And only yesterday
The larks went up a little way to sing
       What lovers say
   Who loiter in the lanes to-day;
   The buds begin to talk of May
   With learned rooks on city trees,
        And if God please
       With all of these
We, too, shall see another Spring.
 
But in that red brick barn upon the hill
    I wonder—can one own the deer,
And does one walk with children still
        As one did here?
        Do roses grow
Beneath those twenty windows in a row—
        And if some night
When you have not seen any light
They cannot move you from your chair
        What happens there?
         I do not know.
 
       So, when they took
Ken to that place, I did not look
After he called and turned on me
His eyes. These I shall see—

Font size:
Collection  PDF     
 

Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 27, 2023

2:52 min read
106

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCBDECDE FFGGHHHII JKJLLLK MMNOOMN PPQQRRXXPFFPSS TUUTVV WWXXXUHSUSSSYYYU ZOZXWW1 1 FFW 2 2 MM
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 3,141
Words 572
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 11, 9, 7, 7, 14, 6, 16, 11, 4

Charlotte Mary Mew

Charlotte Mary Mew was an English poet whose work spans the eras of Victorian poetry and Modernism.  more…

All Charlotte Mary Mew poems | Charlotte Mary Mew Books

0 fans

Discuss the poem Ken with the community...

0 Comments

    Translation

    Find a translation for this poem in other languages:

    Select another language:

    • - Select -
    • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
    • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
    • Español (Spanish)
    • Esperanto (Esperanto)
    • 日本語 (Japanese)
    • Português (Portuguese)
    • Deutsch (German)
    • العربية (Arabic)
    • Français (French)
    • Русский (Russian)
    • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
    • 한국어 (Korean)
    • עברית (Hebrew)
    • Gaeilge (Irish)
    • Українська (Ukrainian)
    • اردو (Urdu)
    • Magyar (Hungarian)
    • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
    • Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Italiano (Italian)
    • தமிழ் (Tamil)
    • Türkçe (Turkish)
    • తెలుగు (Telugu)
    • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
    • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
    • Čeština (Czech)
    • Polski (Polish)
    • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Românește (Romanian)
    • Nederlands (Dutch)
    • Ελληνικά (Greek)
    • Latinum (Latin)
    • Svenska (Swedish)
    • Dansk (Danish)
    • Suomi (Finnish)
    • فارسی (Persian)
    • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
    • հայերեն (Armenian)
    • Norsk (Norwegian)
    • English (English)

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Ken" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/5544/ken>.

    Become a member!

    Join our community of poets and poetry lovers to share your work and offer feedback and encouragement to writers all over the world!

    March 2024

    Poetry Contest

    Join our monthly contest for an opportunity to win cash prizes and attain global acclaim for your talent.
    2
    days
    18
    hours
    2
    minutes

    Special Program

    Earn Rewards!

    Unlock exciting rewards such as a free mug and free contest pass by commenting on fellow members' poems today!

    Browse Poetry.com

    Quiz

    Are you a poetry master?

    »
    "I walk down the garden paths, and all the daffodils are blowing"
    A Gwendolyn Brooks
    B Emily Dickinson
    C Amy Lowell
    D Elizabeth Barrett Browning