Analysis of the "Eight O'Clock" by A.E. Housman

Blue Sand, I suppose!

Take a quick look at your watch! Or may be that clock on your Smartphone! If it ain’t no Eight o’Clock in there… get it to Eight!

Okay… that was an intro to this post. Let’s get to the point, shall we?

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For more notes of BBA Second Semester English II, CLICK HERE!

Eight O’ Clock

-A.E. Housman

He stood, and heard the steeple 
      Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town. 
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people 
     It tossed them down. 

Strapped, noosed, neighing his hour, 
      He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; 
And then the clock collected in the tower 
      Its strength, and struck.

Analysis of the poem:

-The major character in the poem can either be a common man or a prisoner.

-The poem not only links the inevitable control time has on all of us, but ends in a beautiful but ghastly piece of imagery.

-Literally, this poem is about a man being hung by the steeple in an old English town and he is counting the minutes he has been left with until 8 o’clock which is when he will be executed. On a deeper level, this poem acknowledges the fact that time controls us and our life and death, seeing how it was the clock chime that decided the prisoner’s time of death/execution.

-The title of this poem refers to the traditional morning hour of execution in England of centuries past. The speaker is the poet. The dramatic situation is that an unnamed male prisoner is standing, presumably on a scaffold, and waiting to be executed when the clock in the nearby church steeple tolls eight.

-The rhyming in the poem, however, gives the reader a sense of inevitability, as well as harmony.

-“Eight O’Clock” is rather symbolical. The striking of the clock and the striking the head of prisoner is analogous.

©LinkinMyth: Four levels Analysis of ‘Eight o’Clock’ A.E. Housman