Gone, Gone Again
GONE, gone again,And August gone,Again gone by,
Not memorableSave that I saw them go,As past the empty quaysThe rivers flow.
And now again,In the harvest rain,The Blenheim orangesFall grubby from the trees,
As when I was young--And when the lost one was here--And when the war beganTo turn young men to dung.
Look at the old house,Outmoded, dignified,Dark and untenanted,With grass growing instead
Of the footsteps of life,The friendliness, the strife;In its beds have lainYouth, love, age and pain:
I am something like that;Only I am not dead,Still breathing and interestedIn the house that is not dark:--
I am something like that:Not one pane to reflect the sun,For the schoolboys to throw at--They have broken every one.
Words in this poem
- memorable a.
- Worthy to be remembered; very important or remarkable. [L. memorabilis, fr. memorare to bring to remembrance, fr. memor mindful, remembering. See Memory, and cf. Memorabilia.]
- grubby a.
- Dirty; unclean. [From Grub.]
- friendliness n.
- The condition or quality of being friendly. Sir P. Sidney.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- pane n.
- The narrow edge of a hammer head. See Peen. [F. panne.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gone, Gone Again is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22423; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edward Thomas, Gone, Gone Again, in Poems (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22423, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/thomas-edward-poems/gone-gone-again.html, id L08178.
Form and metre
Gone, Gone Again is 31 lines in 8 stanzas. The commonest rhyme scheme is AABB, in 2 of the 8 stanzas; the rest vary or could not be confirmed. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.7 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 23% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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.
- 2 -A-A memorable · goA · quays · flowA
- 3 AABB againA · rainA · orangesB · treesB
- 4 A--A youngA · here · began · dungA
- 6 AABB lifeA · strifeA · lainB · painB
- 7 -AA- that · deadA · interestedA · dark
- 8 ABAB thatA · sunB · atA · oneB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| GONE, gone again, | 4 | ··˘/ |
| And August gone, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Again gone by, | 4 | ˘/·· |
| Not memorable | 5 | ·/˘˘˘ |
| Save that I saw them go, | 6 | ······ |
| As past the empty quays | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The rivers flow. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| And now again, | 4 | ··˘/ |
| In the harvest rain, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| The Blenheim oranges | 6 | ·/·/˘˘ |
| Fall grubby from the trees, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| As when I was young-- | 5 | ····· |
| And when the lost one was here-- | 7 | ······· |
| And when the war began | 6 | ····˘/ |
| To turn young men to dung. | 6 | ······ |
| Look at the old house, | 5 | ····· |
| Outmoded, dignified, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Dark and untenanted, | 6 | ······ |
| With grass growing instead | 6 | ··/˘˘/ |
| Of the footsteps of life, | 6 | ··/··· |
| The friendliness, the strife; | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| In its beds have lain | 5 | ····· |
| Youth, love, age and pain: | 5 | ····· |
| I am something like that; | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Only I am not dead, | 6 | /˘···· |
| Still breathing and interested | 7 | ·/˘·/˘˘ |
| In the house that is not dark:-- | 7 | ······· |
| I am something like that: | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Not one pane to reflect the sun, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| For the schoolboys to throw at-- | 7 | ··/···· |
| They have broken every one. | 8 | ··/˘/˘˘· |
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.