Yattendon
Among the woods and tillageThat fringe the topmost downs,All lonely lies the village,Far off from seas and towns.Yet when her own folk slumberedI heard within her streetMurmur of men unnumberedAnd march of myriad feet.
For all she lies so lonely,Far off from towns and seas,The village holds not onlyThe roofs beneath her trees:While Life is sweet and tragicAnd Death is veiled and dumb,Hither, by singer's magic,The pilgrim world must come.
Words in this poem
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- unnumbered a.
- Not numbered; not counted or estimated; innumerable.
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Yattendon is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems: New and Old, Project Gutenberg ebook #24405; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry John Newbolt, Yattendon, in Poems: New and Old (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24405, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/newbolt-poems/yattendon.html, id L11448.
Form and metre
Yattendon is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 ABAB-C-C tillageA · downsB · villageA · townsB · slumbered · streetC · unnumbered · feetC
- 2 ABABCDCD lonelyA · seasB · onlyA · treesB · tragicC · dumbD · magicC · comeD
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Among the woods and tillage | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| That fringe the topmost downs, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| All lonely lies the village, | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Far off from seas and towns. | 6 | ······ |
| Yet when her own folk slumbered | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| I heard within her street | 6 | ······ |
| Murmur of men unnumbered | 7 | /˘··˘/˘ |
| And march of myriad feet. | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| For all she lies so lonely, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Far off from towns and seas, | 6 | ······ |
| The village holds not only | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| The roofs beneath her trees: | 6 | ······ |
| While Life is sweet and tragic | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And Death is veiled and dumb, | 6 | ······ |
| Hither, by singer's magic, | 7 | /˘·/˘/˘ |
| The pilgrim world must come. | 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.