The Ledbury Train
FROM Wind’s Point hill at eventide,I see the train go by;The train that goes to Ledbury,Along the vale of Wye.
It wanders through the clustered hops,And through the green hedgerows,It minds me of a fairy thing,So gliding-like it goes.
And standing there on Wind’s Point hill,Within the sunset glow,The purple shadows over Wales,The little train below.
With all the pine trees whispering,And turning softly blue;I feel as though I were a child,With fairy tales come true!
Words in this poem
- eventide n.
- The time of evening; evening. [AS. æfentid. See Tide.]
- 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.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Ledbury Train 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 Ledbury Train, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/the-ledbury-train.html, id L22670.
Form and metre
The Ledbury Train is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 eventide · byA · ledbury · wyeA
- 2 -A-A hops · hedgerowsA · thing · goesA
- 3 -A-A hill · glowA · wales · belowA
- 4 -A-A whispering · blueA · child · trueA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| FROM Wind’s Point hill at eventide, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| I see the train go by; | 6 | ······ |
| The train that goes to Ledbury, | 8 | ········ |
| Along the vale of Wye. | 6 | ˘/···· |
| It wanders through the clustered hops, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And through the green hedgerows, | 7 | ······· |
| It minds me of a fairy thing, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| So gliding-like it goes. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And standing there on Wind’s Point hill, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Within the sunset glow, | 6 | ···/·· |
| The purple shadows over Wales, | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| The little train below. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| With all the pine trees whispering, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And turning softly blue; | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| I feel as though I were a child, | 8 | ········ |
| With fairy tales come true! | 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.