Anthology - The Farmer's Bride

Three Summers since I chose a maid,

Too young maybe - but more’s to do

At harvest-time than bide and woo.

When us was wed she turned afraid

Of love and me and all things human;

Like the shut of a winter’s day

Her smile went out, and twasn’t a woman -

More like a little frightened fay.

One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

‘Out ‘mong the sheep, her be,’ they said,

Should properly have been abed;

But sure enough she wasn’t there

Lying awake with her wide brown stare.

So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down

We chased her, flying like a hare

Before our lanterns. To Church-Town

All in a shiver and a scare

We caught her, fetched her home at last

And turned the key upon her, fast.

She does the work about the house

As well as most, but like a mouse:

Happy enough to chat and play

With birds and rabbits and such as they,

So long as men-folk keep away.

‘Not near, not near!’ her eyes beseech

When one of us comes within reach.

The women say that beasts in stall

Look round like children at her call.

I’ve hardly heard her speak at all.

Shy as a leveret, swift as he,

Straight and slight as a young larch tree,

Sweet as the first wild violets, she,

To her wild self. But what to me?

The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,

The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,

One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,

A magpie’s spotted feathers lie

On the black earth spread white with rime,

The berries redden-up to Christmas-time.

What’s Christmas-time without there be

Some other in the house than we!

She sleeps up in the attic there

Alone, poor maid. ‘Tis but a stair

Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,

The soft young down of her, the brown,

The brown of her - her eyes, her hair, her hair!

THEMES:

  • gender roles

  • marriage

  • sexual relationships

  • broken relationships

  • distance

FORM:

  • dramatic monologue

    • emphasises that this poem is solely from one perspective

STRUCTURE:

  • variable stanza length

    • represents irregularity of situation and bride

  • irregular rhyme scheme

    • represents irregularity of situation and bride

  • masculine rhyme

    • emphasises the theme of gender roles and divide between men and women

  • punctuation

    • represents the speaker’s manipulation and control of the bride as he manipulates the rhythm

  • iambic tetrameter

    • represents missing heartbeat; lack of love

LANGUAGE:

  • synecdoche

    • unbalanced tricolon, exclamative, ‘h’ alliteration - “her eyes, her hair, her hair!“

  • zoomorphism

    • polysyndeton, syndetic listing - “love and me and all things human“

    • simile, metaphor, natural imagery - “flying like a hare“

    • simile, natural imagery - “like a mouse“

    • simile, sibilance, natural imagery - “shy as a leveret, swift as he“

    • extended metaphor, expanded noun phrase, natural imagery - “the soft young down of her“

    • simile, fricative alliteration - “like a little frightened fay“

  • assonance, ‘h’ alliteration - “I’ve hardly heard her speak at all”

  • enjambment, sarcasm - “up in the attic there // alone, poor maid“

  • extended metaphor, sexual imagery - “berries redden up to Christmas-time”

  • metaphor - “twasn’t a woman“

CONTEXT:

  • written by Charlotte Mew

  • in a time when concerns were raising about husband’s possession of women

  • Mew resolved never to marry out of fear of passing on mental illness, of which there was a history in her family