Gordon Bottomley

Poems Biography

Littleholme Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTE UVWXY WZA2B2C2D2E2F2G2 H2I2J2K2JL2G2M2N2O2I 2P2OQ2EQ2Q2R2S2Q2ZT2 U2V2W2W2FQ2G2T2X2T2T 2

To J S and A W SA
-
-
In entering the town where the bright riverB
Shrinks in its white stone bed old thoughts returnC
Of how a quiet queen was nurtured hereD
In the pale shadowed ruin on the heightE
Of how when the hoar town was new and cleanF
And had not grown a part of the gaunt fellsG
That peered down into it the burghers woveH
On their small fireside looms green famous websI
To cling on lissome tower dwelling ladiesJ
Who rode the hills swaying like green saplingsK
Or mask tall hardy outlaws from pursuitL
Down beechen caverns and green under lightsM
The rude vain looms are gone their beams are brokenN
Their webs are now not seen but memoryO
Still tangles in their mesh the dews they sweptP
Like ruby sparks the lights they took the scentsQ
They held the movement of their shapes and shadesR
Of how the Border burners in cold dawnsS
Of Summer hurried North up the high valesT
Past smoking farmsteads that had lit the nightE
And surf of crowding cattle and of howU
A laughing prince of cursed impossible hopesV
Rode through the little streets Northward to battleW
And to defeat to be a fading thoughtX
Belated in dead mountains of romanceY
-
A carver at his bench in a high gableW
Hears the sharp stream close under far belowZ
Tinkle and rustle and no other soundA2
Arises there to him to change his thoughtsB2
Of the changed silent town and the dead handsC2
That made it and maintained it and the needD2
For handiwork and happy work and workE2
To use and ease the mind if such sweet townsF2
Are to be built again or live againG2
-
The long town ends at Littleholme where the roadH2
Creeps up to hills of ancient looking stoneI2
Under the hanging eaves at LittleholmeJ2
A latticed casement peeps above still gardensK2
Into a crown of druid solemn treesJ
Upon a knoll as high as a small houseL2
A shapely mound made so by nameless menG2
Whose smoothing touch yet shows through the green hideM2
When the slow moonlight drips from leaf to leafN2
Of that sharp plumy gloom and the hour comesO2
When something seems awaited though unknownI2
There should appear between those leaf thatched pilesP2
Fresh long limbed women striding easilyO
And men whose hair plaits swing with their shagged armsQ2
Returning in that equal echoed lightE
Which does not measure time to the dear garthsQ2
That were their own when from white Norway coastsQ2
They landed on a kind not distant shoreR2
And to the place where they have left their clothingS2
Their long accustomed bones and hair and bedsQ2
That once were pleasant to them in that barrowZ
Their vanished children heaped above them deadT2
For in the soundless stillness of hot noonU2
The mind of man noticeable in that knollV2
Enhances its dark presence with a lifeW2
More vivid and more actual than the lifeW2
Of self sown trees and untouched earth It is seenF
What aspect this land had in those first eyesQ2
In that regard the works of later menG2
Fall in and sink like lime when it is slakedT2
Staid youthful queen and weavers are unbornX2
And the new crags the Northmen saw are setT2
About an earth that has not been misusedT2

Gordon Bottomley



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