Northumberland
A poem of nostalgia for the sea breezes and yellow gorse of Northumberland.
1918
Queen Victoria 1837-1901 to King George VI 1936-1952
A poem of nostalgia for the sea breezes and yellow gorse of Northumberland.
1918
Queen Victoria 1837-1901 to King George VI 1936-1952
War-poet Wilfrid Gibson never served abroad, and was in fact accepted for the army only at his fifth application, in 1917. These short verses do not come from his war-themed collections (though many reflect that subject) but from a set remembering Northumberland, the county of his birth in Hexham.
HEATHERLAND and bentland,*
Black land and white,
God bring me to Northumberland,
The land of my delight.
Land of singing waters,
And words from off the sea,
God bring me to Northumberland,
The land where I would be.
Heatherland and bentland,
And valley rich with corn,
God bring me to Northumberland,
The land where I was born.
Bent-grass (Agrostis) is a very common kind of stiff, coarse grass. Bentland is an area of bent-grass, or simply a term for heathland in general.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.