I Never Saw that Land Before
Edward Thomas 1878 (London Borough of Lambeth) – 1917 (Pas-de-Calais)
I never saw that land before,
And now can never see it again;
Yet, as if by acquaintance hoar
Endeared, by gladness and by pain,
Great was the affection that I bore
To the valley and the river small,
The cattle, the grass, the bare ash trees,
The chickens from the farmsteads, all
Elm-hidden, and the tributaries
Descending at equal interval;
The blackthorns down along the brook
With wounds yellow as crocuses
Where yesterday the labourer's hook
Had sliced them cleanly; and the breeze
That hinted all and nothing spoke.
I neither expected anything
Nor yet remembered: but some goal
I touched then; and if I could sing
What would not even whisper my soul
As I went on my journeying,
I should use, as the trees and birds did,
A language not to be betrayed;
And what was hid should still be hid
Excepting from those like me made
Who answer when such whispers bid.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 112 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXAXA BCBCX DXDCX EFEFE GHGHG |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 846 |
Words | 158 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
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"I Never Saw that Land Before" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9855/i-never-saw-that-land-before>.
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