Morning (To M. C.)
You were three men and women two,And well I loved you, all of you,And well we kept the Sabbath day.The bells called out of Malvern town,But never bell could call us downAs we went up the hill away.
Was it a thousand years agoOr yesterday that men were soZealous of creed and argument?Here wind is brother to the rain,And the hills laugh upon the plain,And the old brain-gotten feuds are spent.
Bring lusty laughter, lusty jest,Bring each the song he names the best,Bring eager thought and speech that’s keen,Tell each his tale and tell it out,The only shame be prudent doubt,Bring bodies where the lust is clean.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Morning (To M. C.) is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, 1908-1919, Project Gutenberg ebook #51575; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Drinkwater, Morning (To M. C.), in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/morning-to-m-c.html, id L23077.
Form and metre
Morning (To M. C.) is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABCCB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABCCB twoA · youA · dayB · townC · downC · awayB
- 2 AABCCB agoA · soA · argumentB · rainC · plainC · spentB
- 3 AABCCB jestA · bestA · keenB · outC · doubtC · cleanB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| You were three men and women two, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And well I loved you, all of you, | 8 | ········ |
| And well we kept the Sabbath day. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The bells called out of Malvern town, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But never bell could call us down | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As we went up the hill away. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Was it a thousand years ago | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Or yesterday that men were so | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Zealous of creed and argument? | 8 | /˘···/˘˘ |
| Here wind is brother to the rain, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And the hills laugh upon the plain, | 8 | ········ |
| And the old brain-gotten feuds are spent. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Bring lusty laughter, lusty jest, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Bring each the song he names the best, | 8 | ········ |
| Bring eager thought and speech that’s keen, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Tell each his tale and tell it out, | 8 | ········ |
| The only shame be prudent doubt, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Bring bodies where the lust is clean. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.