An Old Road
A host of poppies, a flight of swallows;A flurry of rain, and a wind that followsShepherds the leaves in the sheltered hollows,For the forest is shaken and thinned.
Over my head are the firs for rafter;The crows blow south, and my heart goes after;I kiss my hands to the world with laughter--Is it Aidenn or mystical Ind?
Oh, the whirl of the fields in the windy weather!How the barley breaks and blows together!Oh, glad is the free bird afloat on the heather--Oh, the whole world is glad of the wind!
Words in this poem
- flurry n.
- A sudden and brief blast or gust; a light, temporary breeze; as, a flurry of wind. [Prov. E. flur to ruffle.]
- rafter n.
- Originally, any rough and somewhat heavy piece of timber. Now, commonly, one of the timbers of a roof which are put on sloping, according to the inclination of the roof. See Illust. of Queen-post. [AS. ræfter; akin to E. raft, n. See Raft.]
- afloat adv.
- Borne on the water; floating; on board ship. [Pref. a- + float.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Old Road is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, An Old Road, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/an-old-road.html, id L24789.
Form and metre
An Old Road is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 73%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AAA- swallowsA · followsA · hollowsA · thinned
- 2 AAA- rafterA · afterA · laughterA · ind
- 3 AAA- weatherA · togetherA · heatherA · wind
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A host of poppies, a flight of swallows; | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| A flurry of rain, and a wind that follows | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Shepherds the leaves in the sheltered hollows, | 10 | /˘····/˘/˘ |
| For the forest is shaken and thinned. | 10 | ··/˘·/˘··˘ |
| Over my head are the firs for rafter; | 10 | ········/˘ |
| The crows blow south, and my heart goes after; | 10 | ·········· |
| I kiss my hands to the world with laughter-- | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Is it Aidenn or mystical Ind? | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| Oh, the whirl of the fields in the windy weather! | 12 | ········/˘/˘ |
| How the barley breaks and blows together! | 10 | ··/˘···˘/˘ |
| Oh, glad is the free bird afloat on the heather-- | 12 | ······˘/··/˘ |
| Oh, the whole world is glad of the wind! | 9 | ········· |
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.