[ No.69 of my favourite short poems ]
‘On Bredon Hill’ . . . Sketch – WHB: 1991
Bredon Hill is in Worcestershire, England, in the Vale of Evesham. This poem of A.E. Housman’s, which he called ‘Bredon Hill’, is taken from his collection of poems, ‘A Shropshire Lad’ published in 1896.
Housman (1859-1936) was an English poet and scholar, whose verse exerted a strong influence on later poets. The tone of this particular poem shows a preoccupation with loss and, as such, mirrors the tone of many of his poems. It tells of lost love, contrasting powerfully the ‘happy noise’ of the church bells which brought joy and happy memories of youthful exuberence at the start of the poem, with the single tone of the funeral bell with which the poem ends.
Bredon Hill (From “A Shropshire Lad”)
by A.E. Housman
In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.
Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.
The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away;
“Come all to church, good people;
Good people come and pray.”
But here my love would stay.
And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
“Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time.”
But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.
They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.
The bells they sound on Bredon,
And still the steeples hum,
“Come all to church, good people,”
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.
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