Casend Hill
O CASEND HILL, I be so heavy-hearted,So lonesome-like since from my love I parted,That when the bracken on your sides is springing,And all the mating thrushes start a-singing,A kind of fear across my mind comes creeping,I feel as though I’d surely fall a-weeping!
O Casend Hill, the Spring does not forsake you,At winter’s close the sun comes back to wake you;And year by year the same sweet wind it passes,To stir the lark that’s nesting in your grasses;But no one comes to ask me how I’m faring,In all the world there’s not a soul that’s caring!
Words in this poem
- lonesome a.
- Secluded from society; not frequented by human beings; solitary.
- bracken n.
- A brake or fern. [OE. braken, AS. bracce. See 2d Brake, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Casend Hill 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, Casend Hill, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/casend-hill.html, id L22672.
Form and metre
Casend Hill is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 AABBCC heartedA · partedA · springingB · singingB · creepingC · weepingC
- 2 AABB-- youA · youA · passesB · grassesB · faring · caring
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O CASEND HILL, I be so heavy-hearted, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| So lonesome-like since from my love I parted, | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| That when the bracken on your sides is springing, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| And all the mating thrushes start a-singing, | 11 | ···/˘/˘··/˘ |
| A kind of fear across my mind comes creeping, | 11 | ····˘/···/˘ |
| I feel as though I’d surely fall a-weeping! | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| O Casend Hill, the Spring does not forsake you, | 11 | ········˘/· |
| At winter’s close the sun comes back to wake you; | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| And year by year the same sweet wind it passes, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| To stir the lark that’s nesting in your grasses; | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| But no one comes to ask me how I’m faring, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| In all the world there’s not a soul that’s caring! | 11 | ·········/˘ |
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.