Tramping
OH! it’s good to be alive, man,Good to take the road and tramp,When the morning smells of meadows,And the lanes are cool and damp.
And the little furry creaturesThink the world is theirs for play,Sitting still to watch you coming,Half afraid to run away.
There’s just light enough to see by,Growing stronger as you go;And the air is sort o’ hushed-like,Breathing very long and slow.
And the mountains near by MonmouthSeem to melt into the sky;And the banks along of Ross waySeem to melt into the Wye.
And there’s not a human stirring,To disturb the field or fen.Oh! you’ll never find your God, man,If you do not find Him then!
Words in this poem
- furry a.
- Covered with fur; dressed in fur. [From Fur.]
- ross n.
- The rough, scaly matter on the surface of the bark of trees. [Etymol. uncertain.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Tramping 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, Tramping, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/tramping.html, id L22678.
Form and metre
Tramping is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 -A-A man · trampA · meadows · dampA
- 2 -A-A creatures · playA · coming · awayA
- 3 -A-A by · goA · like · slowA
- 4 -A-A monmouth · skyA · way · wyeA
- 5 -A-A stirring · fenA · man · thenA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| OH! it’s good to be alive, man, | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| Good to take the road and tramp, | 7 | ······· |
| When the morning smells of meadows, | 8 | ··/˘··/· |
| And the lanes are cool and damp. | 7 | ······· |
| And the little furry creatures | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| Think the world is theirs for play, | 7 | ······· |
| Sitting still to watch you coming, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Half afraid to run away. | 7 | ·˘/··˘/ |
| There’s just light enough to see by, | 8 | ···˘/··· |
| Growing stronger as you go; | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| And the air is sort o’ hushed-like, | 8 | ········ |
| Breathing very long and slow. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| And the mountains near by Monmouth | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Seem to melt into the sky; | 7 | ······· |
| And the banks along of Ross way | 8 | ···˘/··· |
| Seem to melt into the Wye. | 7 | ······· |
| And there’s not a human stirring, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| To disturb the field or fen. | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Oh! you’ll never find your God, man, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| If you do not find Him then! | 7 | ······· |
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.