The Road to Kérity
Do you remember the two old people we passed on the road to Kérity,Resting their sack on the stones, by the drenched wayside,Looking at us with their lightless eyes through the driving rain,and then out againTo the rocks, and the long white line of the tide:Frozen ghosts that were children once, husband and wife, father,and mother,Looking at us with those frozen eyes; have you ever seen anythingquite so chilled or so old?But we--with our arms about eachother,We did not feel the cold!
Words in this poem
- wayside n.
- The side of the way; the edge or border of a road or path.
- lightless a.
- Destitute of light; dark.
- chilled a.
- Hardened on the surface or edge by chilling; as, chilled iron; a chilled wheel.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Road to Kérity is in the public domain. This text is taken from The farmer's bride, Project Gutenberg ebook #71305; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charlotte Mew, The Road to Kérity, in The Farmer's Bride (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #71305, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mew-farmers-bride/the-road-to-k-rity.html, id L02478.
Form and metre
The Road to Kérity is 12 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -ABBA-C-D-CD kérity · waysideA · rainB · againB · tideA · father · motherC · anything · oldD · each · otherC · coldD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Do you remember the two old people we passed on the road to Kérity, | 19 | ··˘/˘···/˘········· |
| Resting their sack on the stones, by the drenched wayside, | 12 | /˘········/· |
| Looking at us with their lightless eyes through the driving rain, | 14 | /˘····/˘···/˘· |
| and then out again | 5 | ···˘/ |
| To the rocks, and the long white line of the tide: | 11 | ··········· |
| Frozen ghosts that were children once, husband and wife, father, | 14 | /˘···/˘·/˘··/˘ |
| and mother, | 3 | ·/˘ |
| Looking at us with those frozen eyes; have you ever seen anything | 16 | /˘····/˘···/·/˘· |
| quite so chilled or so old? | 7 | ···˘··· |
| But we--with our arms about each | 8 | ···/···· |
| other, | 2 | /˘ |
| We did not feel the cold! | 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.