The Word
My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,May we be rich in love's refined gold,May love's gold coin be current with us still.
May love be sweeter for the vanished days,And your most perfect beauty still as dearAs when your troubled singer stood at gazeIn the dear March of a most sacred year.
May what we are be all we might have been,And that potential, perfect, O my friend,And may there still be many sheafs to gleanIn our love's acre, comrade, till the end.
And may we find, when ended is the page,Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.
Words in this poem
- bonny a.
- Handsome; beautiful; pretty; attractively lively and graceful. [OE. boni, prob. fr. F. bon, fem. bonne, good, fr. L. bonus good. See Bounty, and cf. Bonus, Boon.]
- glean n.
- Cleaning; afterbirth. Holland.
- acre n.
- Any field of arable or pasture land. [OE. aker, AS. æcer; akin to OS. accar, OHG. achar, Ger. acker, Icel. akr, Sw. åker, Dan. ager, Goth. akrs, L. ager, Gr. ajra. *2, 206.]
- pilgrimage n.
- The journey of a pilgrim; a long journey; especially, a journey to a shrine or other sacred place. Fig., the journey of human life. [OE. pilgrimage, pelgrinage; cf. F. pèlerinage.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Word is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Story of a Round-House, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #40717; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Masefield, The Word, in The Story of a Round-House, and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #40717, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masefield-round-house/the-word.html, id L25029.
Form and metre
The Word is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
See 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 ABAB oldA · hillB · goldA · stillB
- 2 ABAB daysA · dearB · gazeA · yearB
- 3 -A-A been · friendA · glean · endA
- 4 AA pageA · pilgrimageA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And hand in hand go tottering down the hill, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| May we be rich in love's refined gold, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| May love's gold coin be current with us still. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| May love be sweeter for the vanished days, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And your most perfect beauty still as dear | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| As when your troubled singer stood at gaze | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| In the dear March of a most sacred year. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| May what we are be all we might have been, | 10 | ·········· |
| And that potential, perfect, O my friend, | 10 | ··˘/˘/···· |
| And may there still be many sheafs to glean | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| In our love's acre, comrade, till the end. | 10 | ·/·/˘/···· |
| And may we find, when ended is the page, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage. | 11 | ···/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
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.