Two Hundred Years After
Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night,(Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight),Along the pallid edge of the quiet skyHe watched a nosing lorry grinding on,And straggling files of men; when these were gone,A double limber and six mules went by,Hauling the rations up through ruts and mudTo trench-lines digged two hundred years ago.Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud,And soon he saw the village lights below.
But when he'd told his tale, an old man saidThat he'd seen soldiers pass along that hill;"Poor, silent things, they were the English deadWho came to fight in France and got their fill."
Words in this poem
- hearsay n.
- Report; rumor; fame; common talk; something heard from another.
- nosing n.
- That part of the treadboard of a stair which projects over the riser; hence, any like projection, as the projecting edge of a molding.
- lorry n.
- A small cart or wagon, as those used on the tramways in mines to carry coal or rubbish; also, a barrow or truck for shifting baggage, as at railway stations. [Prob. from lurry to pull or lug.]
- straggling a.
- from Straggle, v.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- scud v. i.
- To move swiftly; especially, to move as if driven forward by something. [Dan. skyde to shoot, shove, push, akin to skud shot, gunshot, a shoot, young bough, and to E. shoot. sq. root159. See Shoot.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Two Hundred Years After is in the public domain. This text is taken from The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, Project Gutenberg ebook #45199; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Siegfried Sassoon, Two Hundred Years After, in The War Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #45199, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-war-poems/two-hundred-years-after.html, id L17231.
Form and metre
Two Hundred Years After is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 29% 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 AABCCBDEDE nightA · sightA · skyB · onC · goneC · byB · mudD · agoE · scudD · belowE
- 2 ABAB saidA · hillB · deadA · fillB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| (Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight), | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky | 10 | ˘/·/˘···/· |
| He watched a nosing lorry grinding on, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| And straggling files of men; when these were gone, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| A double limber and six mules went by, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago. | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And soon he saw the village lights below. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But when he'd told his tale, an old man said | 10 | ·········· |
| That he'd seen soldiers pass along that hill; | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| "Poor, silent things, they were the English dead | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Who came to fight in France and got their fill." | 10 | ·········· |
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.