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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


OUR SUSSEX DOWNS by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES

Poet Analysis

First Line: MY YOUTH IS GONE -- MY YOUTH THAT LAUGHED AND YAWNED
Last Line: "AND YOUTH THAT LAUGHS AND YAWNS IN ONE SHORT BREATH."
Subject(s): SUSSEX, ENGLAND;

MY youth is gone -- my youth that laughed and yawned
In one sweet breath, and will not come again;
And crumbs of wonder are my scanty fare,
Snatched from the beauty on a hill or plain.
So, as I look, I wonder if the land
Has @3breathed@1 those shadows in the waters blue!
From all first sounds I half expect to hear,
Not only echoes, but @3their@1 echoes too.
But when I see -- the first time in my life --
Our Sussex Downs, so mighty, strong and bare
That many a wood of fifteen hundred trees
Seems but a handful scattered lightly there --
"What a great hour," think I, "half-way 'twixt Death
And Youth that laughs and yawns in one short breath."



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