Bredon
BREDON is a lonesome hill,It hasn’t any brothers;It stands within the Severn vale,Apart from all the others.
The Cotswold Hills go hand in hand,The Malverns touching shoulder;But Bredon all alone does stand,More proud than they, and bolder.
Then it’s on Bredon I will roamThe livelong summer through;For I’ve no brothers, I’ve no mate,And I be lonesome too!
Words in this poem
- lonesome a.
- Secluded from society; not frequented by human beings; solitary.
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- livelong a.
- Whole; entire; long in passing; -- used of time, as day or night, in adverbial phrases, and usually with a sense of tediousness. [For lifelong. Cf. Lifelong.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bredon is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #50591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Radclyffe Hall, Bredon, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/bredon.html, id L22675.
Form and metre
Bredon is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 hill · brothersA · vale · othersA
- 2 ABAB handA · shoulderB · standA · bolderB
- 3 -A-A roam · throughA · mate · tooA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| BREDON is a lonesome hill, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| It hasn’t any brothers; | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| It stands within the Severn vale, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Apart from all the others. | 7 | ˘/···/˘ |
| The Cotswold Hills go hand in hand, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The Malverns touching shoulder; | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| But Bredon all alone does stand, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| More proud than they, and bolder. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Then it’s on Bredon I will roam | 8 | ········ |
| The livelong summer through; | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| For I’ve no brothers, I’ve no mate, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And I be lonesome too! | 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.