poem

An Old Song — Aug 13, 2026

Edward Thomas

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THE sun set, the wind fell, the sea
Was like a mirror shaking:
The one small wave that clapped the land
A mile-long snake of foam was making
Where tide had smoothed and wind had dried
The vacant sand.

A light divided the swollen clouds
And lay most perfectly
Like a straight narrow footbridge bright
That crossed over the sea to me;
And no one else in the whole world
Saw that same sight.

I walked elate, my bridge always
Just one step from my feet:
A robin sang, a shade in shade:
And all I did was to repeat:
"I'll go no more a-roving
With you, fair maid."

The sailors' song of merry loving
With dusk and sea-gull's mewing
Mixed sweet, the lewdness far outweighed
By the wild charm the chorus played:
"I'll go no more a-roving
With you, fair maid:
A-roving, a-roving, since roving's been my ruin,
I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."

_In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid--
Mark well what I do say--
In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid
And she was a mistress of her trade:
I'll go no more a-roving
With you, fair maid:
A-roving, a-roving, since roving's been my ruin,
I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid._

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📖 About this poem

Edward Thomas builds this poem on a walk at dusk, then lets an old sailor's shanty walk in beside him. The opening stanzas are pure watchful stillness: a mirror-calm sea, one wave making "a mile-long snake of foam," a shaft of light laid across the water like a private footbridge only the speaker can see. That image of solitary wonder is the heart of the poem — a moment so personal it can't be shared. Then, almost startlingly, the refrain of "The Maid of Amsterdam" breaks in, its bawdy chorus about roving and ruin mixing with gull-cries and dusk until the "lewdness" is outweighed by pure charm. Thomas doesn't explain the collision; he just lets it happen, the way memory and song intrude on solitude uninvited. The poem still lands because it trusts music over meaning, catching how an old tune can surface unbidden and turn a quiet evening into something stranger and richer than it was a moment before.

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