Old Woman in May
“Old woman by the hedgerowIn gown of withered black,With beads and pins and buttonsAnd ribbons in your pack--How many miles do you go?To Dumbleton and back?”
“To Dumbleton and back, sir,And round by Cotsall Hill,I count the miles at morning,At night I count them still,A Jill without a Jack, sir,I travel with a will.”
“It’s little men are payingFor such as you can do,You with the grey dust in your hairAnd sharp nails in your shoe,The young folks go a-Maying,But what is May to you?”
“I care not what they pay meWhile I can hear the callOf cattle on the hillside,And watch the blossoms fallIn a churchyard where maybeThere’s company for all.”
Words in this poem
- hedgerow n.
- A row of shrubs, or trees, planted for inclosure or separation of fields.
- jill n.
- A young woman; a sweetheart. See Gill. Beau. & Fl. [See Gill sweetheart.]
- folks n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- churchyard n.
- The ground adjoining a church, in which the dead are buried; a cemetery.
- maybe adv.
- Perhaps; possibly; peradventure. [For it may be.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Old Woman in May 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, Old Woman in May, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/old-woman-in-may.html, id L23044.
Form and metre
Old Woman in May is 24 lines in 4 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 -A-A-A hedgerow · blackA · buttons · packA · go · backA
- 2 AB-BAB sirA · hillB · morning · stillB · sirA · willB
- 3 AB-BAB payingA · doB · hair · shoeB · mayingA · youB
- 4 -A-A-A me · callA · hillside · fallA · maybe · allA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| “Old woman by the hedgerow | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| In gown of withered black, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| With beads and pins and buttons | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And ribbons in your pack-- | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| How many miles do you go? | 6 | ·/···· |
| To Dumbleton and back?” | 6 | ······ |
| “To Dumbleton and back, sir, | 7 | ······· |
| And round by Cotsall Hill, | 6 | ······ |
| I count the miles at morning, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| At night I count them still, | 6 | ······ |
| A Jill without a Jack, sir, | 7 | ······· |
| I travel with a will.” | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| “It’s little men are paying | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| For such as you can do, | 6 | ······ |
| You with the grey dust in your hair | 8 | ········ |
| And sharp nails in your shoe, | 6 | ······ |
| The young folks go a-Maying, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| But what is May to you?” | 6 | ······ |
| “I care not what they pay me | 7 | ······· |
| While I can hear the call | 6 | ······ |
| Of cattle on the hillside, | 7 | ·/˘··/· |
| And watch the blossoms fall | 6 | ···/˘· |
| In a churchyard where maybe | 7 | ··/··/˘ |
| There’s company for all.” | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
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.