The Oracles (by A.E. Housman).

 

This poem is found in Housman’s

Last Poems, it is poem number 25:  

’Tis mute, the word they went to hear on

high Dodona mountain

   When winds were in the oakenshaws and

all the cauldrons tolled,

And mute’s the midland navel-stone beside

the singing fountain,

   And echoes list to silence now where gods

told lies of old.

I took my question to the shrine that has not

ceased from speaking,

   The heart within, that tells the truth and

tells it twice as plain;

And from the cave of oracles I heard the

priestess shrieking

   That she and I should surely die and never

live again.

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound

good sense I think it;

   But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth

your mouth no more.

’Tis true there’s better boose then brine, but

he that drowns must drink it;

   And oh, my lass, the news is news that men

have heard before.

The King with half the East at heel is

marched from lands of morning;

    Their fighters drink the rivers up, their

shafts benight the air.

And he that stands will die for nought, and

home there’s no returning.

    The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down

and combed their hair.

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

’Tis mute, the word they went to hear on

high Dodona mountain

   When winds were in the oakenshaws and

all the cauldrons tolled,

And mute’s the midland navel-stone beside

the singing fountain,

   And echoes list to silence now where gods

told lies of old.

I took my question to the shrine that has not

ceased from speaking,

   The heart within, that tells the truth and

tells it twice as plain;

And from the cave of oracles I heard the

priestess shrieking

   That she and I should surely die and never

live again.

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound

good sense I think it;

   But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth

your mouth no more.

’Tis true there’s better boose then brine, but

he that drowns must drink it;

   And oh, my lass, the news is news that men

have heard before.

The King with half the East at heel is

marched from lands of morning;

    Their fighters drink the rivers up, their

shafts benight the air.

And he that stands will die for nought, and

home there’s no returning.

    The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down

and combed their hair.

Analysis:

The unstressed syllables create a

galloping rhythm similar to some of

Swinburne’s work. The long lines are the

result of allowing to lines of 2 stressed

lines to stand together to complete a

more detailed thought in the verse than

otherwise with less words in shorter

lines. Kipling and Crabb favour this

form, though in is often difficult to

fit on a page these longer lines.

The bit about “their shafts be-

night the air” refers to the army of Xeres

(the king with half the East at heel)

being so numerous that when his archers

let loose their arrows, the sky went

black. The “cauldrons” were hung in

the branches of trees. The sense of the 

poem is the nobility of acting cool and

collected in the face of unavoidable

doom. 

Other poems in this style by

Housman are: "Be Still, my Soul, be Still"

(A Shropshire Lad IXLIII), "Oh sick I am

to see you"/The New Mistress (A

Shropshire Lad XXXIV), "The Lads in

their Hundreds" (A Shrophire Lad XXIII,

and "Oh, who is that young sinner?"

(Additional Poems XVIII).

© C.A. MacLennan 2024

I will be posting a of video of me singing

this poem soon at:

Poetry & Folklore - YouTube