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On Wenlock Edge - A E Housman (No. 31 from 'A Shropshire Lad')
Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ
Metre:
Four iambic feet per line
Argument: Crisis resolved by comparison and analogy of nature with past history; the ephemeral quality of history is mirrored in the natural world.
Summary: Crisis introduced in the first line - 'on Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble' - creating a sense of uncertainty since it is as yet unexplained.
The poem is historical yet timeless; on the one hand it speaks of 'the Roman', yet evokes a timelessness in its recalling of the 'English yeoman'.
The action speaks of pain and destruction - in the first stanza we learn that the tree has its leaves ('forest fleece') blown about by the 'Wrekin', how saplings are bent double, and the snow lying thickly upon the leaves.
Next the distant past is recalled, 'when Uricon the city stood'. Housman points out that the wind which blew then is essentially the same wind which blows now. The nature of the wind, though, was different then ('it threshed another wood').
The implication which arises in the third stanza is that the 'English yeoman' was hurt by thoughts of the Roman occupying his land. This idea is made more explicit in the following verse, likening the wind that blows 'through woods in riot' blew through the Englishman as 'the gale of life'. Trees are continually disturbed by the effects of nature, and in the same manner 'the tree of man was never quiet'.
The final, fifth, stanza begins with a repitition of the second line, 'the gale, it plies the saplings double', linking the end of the poem to its beginning. There is, however, here a reassurance that though the wind - whether physically or metaphorically - may blow fiercely, this will only be temporary. Problems of the past have passed away, and just as 'to-day the Roman and his trouble / Are ashes under Uricon', so the poet's difficulties will be resolved.
Published: September 03, 2009