Can you Remember?

Edmund Blunden 1896 (London) – 1974 (Long Melford)



Yes, I still remember
The whole thing in a way;
Edge and exactitude
Depend on the day.

Of all that prodigious scene
There seems scanty loss,
Though mists mainly float and screen
Canal, spire and fosse;

Though commonly I fail to name
That once obvious Hill,
And where we went and whence we came
To be killed, or kill.
Those mists are spiritual
And luminous-obscure,
Evolved of countless circumstance
Of which I am sure;

Of which, at the instance
Of sound, smell, change and stir,
New-old shapes for ever
Intensely recur.

And some are sparkling, laughing, singing,
Young, heroic, mild;
And some incurable, twisted,
Shrieking, dumb, defiled.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 23, 2023

32 sec read
217

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCB DXDX EFEFXGXG XAAA XXXC
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 626
Words 109
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 8, 4, 4

Edmund Blunden

Edmund Charles Blunden, MC was an English poet, author and critic. more…

All Edmund Blunden poems | Edmund Blunden Books

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    "Can you Remember?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9117/can-you-remember?>.

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    Who wrote the 1892 poem Gunga Din?
    A Alfred, Lord Tennyson
    B Walt Whitman
    C Ho Xuan Huong
    D Rudyard Kipling