Return from Business
Evenings in trains,When the little black twittering ghostsAlong the brims of cuttings,Against the luminous sky,Interrupt with their hurrying rumour every thoughtSave that one is young and setting,Headlong westering,And there is no recapture.
Words in this poem
- twittering n.
- The act of one who, or that which, twitters.
- rumour n.
- A flying or popular report; the common talk; hence, public fame; notoriety. [F. rumeur, L. rumor; cf. rumificare, rumitare to rumor, Skr. ru to cry.]
- westering a.
- Passing to the west.
- recapture n.
- The act of retaking or recovering by capture; especially, the retaking of a prize or goods from a captor.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Return from Business is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #24364; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Aldous Huxley, Return from Business, in The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24364, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/huxley-defeat-of-youth/return-from-business.html, id L22036.
Form and metre
Return from Business is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Evenings in trains, | 4 | /˘·· |
| When the little black twittering ghosts | 9 | ··/˘·/˘˘· |
| Along the brims of cuttings, | 7 | ˘/···/˘ |
| Against the luminous sky, | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Interrupt with their hurrying rumour every thought | 12 | ·˘/··/˘·˘/˘· |
| Save that one is young and setting, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Headlong westering, | 5 | /·/˘˘ |
| And there is no recapture. | 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.