“Old Poem”
At fifteen I went with the army,At fourscore I came home.On the way I met a man from the village,I asked him who there was at home.“That over there is your house,All covered over with trees and bushes.”Rabbits had run in at the dog-hole,Pheasants flew down from the beams of the roof.In the courtyard was growing some wild grain;And by the well, some wild mallows.I’ll boil the grain and make porridge,I’ll pluck the mallows and make soup.Soup and porridge are both cooked,But there is no one to eat them with.I went out and looked towards the east,While tears fell and wetted my clothes.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- fourscore a.
- Four times twenty; eighty. [Four + core, n.]
- mallows n.
- A genus of plants (Malva) having mucilaginous qualities. See Malvaceous. [OE. malwe, AS. mealwe, fr. L. malva, akin to Gr. mala`chh; cf. mala`ssein to soften, malako`s soft. Named either from its softening or relaxing properties, or f]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
“Old Poem” is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, “Old Poem”, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/old-poem.html, id L18746.
Form and metre
“Old Poem” is 16 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 -A-A------------ army · homeA · village · homeA · house · bushes · hole · roof · grain · mallows · porridge · soup · cooked · with · east · clothes
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 |
|---|---|---|
| At fifteen I went with the army, | 9 | ·˘/····/˘ |
| At fourscore I came home. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| On the way I met a man from the village, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| I asked him who there was at home. | 8 | ········ |
| “That over there is your house, | 7 | ······· |
| All covered over with trees and bushes.” | 10 | ·/˘·····/˘ |
| Rabbits had run in at the dog-hole, | 9 | /˘······· |
| Pheasants flew down from the beams of the roof. | 10 | /˘········ |
| In the courtyard was growing some wild grain; | 10 | ··/··/˘··· |
| And by the well, some wild mallows. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| I’ll boil the grain and make porridge, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| I’ll pluck the mallows and make soup. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Soup and porridge are both cooked, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| But there is no one to eat them with. | 9 | ········· |
| I went out and looked towards the east, | 9 | ········· |
| While tears fell and wetted my clothes. | 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.