On the Idle Hill of Summer
Alfred Edward Housman 1859 – 1936
On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.
East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.
Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 29 sec read
- 209 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAB ACAC DXDX EFEF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 510 |
Words | 97 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"On the Idle Hill of Summer" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/903/on-the-idle-hill-of-summer>.
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