The Hills
WHEN I the hills of Malvern see,There comes a sadness over me.
The reason why, I cannot tell,Perhaps I love those hills too well.
But this I know, when I beholdTheir springtime green, and autumn gold,
And see that year by year they bearSuch witness that God’s earth is fair,
I’m happy for their beauty’s sake,And yet my heart begins to ache.
Words in this poem
- sadness n.
- Heaviness; firmness.
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Hills 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, The Hills, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/the-hills.html, id L22660.
Form and metre
The Hills is 10 lines in 5 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AA seeA · meA
- 2 AA tellA · wellA
- 3 AA beholdA · goldA
- 4 AA bearA · fairA
- 5 AA sakeA · acheA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| WHEN I the hills of Malvern see, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| There comes a sadness over me. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The reason why, I cannot tell, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Perhaps I love those hills too well. | 8 | ˘/······ |
| But this I know, when I behold | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Their springtime green, and autumn gold, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| And see that year by year they bear | 8 | ········ |
| Such witness that God’s earth is fair, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I’m happy for their beauty’s sake, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And yet my heart begins to ache. | 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.