The Better Part
Edith Nesbit 1858 (Kennington, Surrey ) – 1924 (New Romney, Kent)
THERE'S a grey old church on a wind-swept hill
Where three bent yew trees cower,
The gipsy roses grow there still,
And the thyme and Saint John's gold flower,
The pale blue violets that love the chalk
Cling light round the lichened stone,
And starlings chatter and grey owls talk
In the belfry o' nights alone.
It's a thousand leagues and a thousand years
From the brick-built, gas-lit town
To the little church where the wild thyme hears
The bees and the breeze of the down.
The town is crowded and hard and rough;
Let those fight in its press who will--
But the little churchyard is quiet enough,
And there's room in the churchyard still.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 95 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABXCXC XDXDEAEA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 648 |
Words | 118 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8 |
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"The Better Part" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/8931/the-better-part>.
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