“Is My Team Ploughing” by A.E. Housman
“Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”
“Is my girl happy,
That I though hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?”
Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.
Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep;
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.
“Is football playing
Along the shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand no more?”
“Is my friend hearty,
Now I am think and pine,
And has he found to sleep in a
A better bed than mine?”
Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.
Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would chose;
I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.
Sample Analysis
“Is My Team Ploughing” is an eight stanza poem where each stanza is a quatrain with a
rhyme scheme of ABCB and is about a man struggling with his conscience. The poem begins
with the narrator putting words in the mouth of his deceased friend. Each odd stanza is what the
narrator imagines his friend would ask is differentiated by being in quotation marks. Each even
stanza becomes the response to his friend’s questions and the lack of quotation marks helps the
reader to see that it must be a different voice speaking.
The conversation begins as would a normal conversation and is about the normal,
ordinary aspects of life: farming and football. By the fifth stanza the questions become more
personal and the friend is asking the narrator about his “girl.” In the sixth stanza, where the
narrator responds to the question, he now ends with, “Be still, my lad, and sleep,” in the hopes of
ceasing the questions. When in the seventh stanza the friend asks how the narrator is doing, the
phrasing of the question foreshadows the narrator’s reason for unease. The friend asks if the
narrator has found “A better bed to sleep in” than his. The friend in this instance is referring to
the fact that he is in eternal sleep in his grave, but there is foreshadowing that the narrator has
taken over his friend’s previous bed. The idea that the narrator is in a relationship with the dead
man’s girl is substantiated when he replies in the last stanza that he “lie[s] easy” and that he
“cheer[s] a dead man’s sweetheart, never ask [him] whose.” Since he refers to a dead man and
refuses to say to whom he is referring, the reader can assume that it is because he does not want
to tell his friend that it is his friend’s sweetheart he is comforting.
The last stanza not only answers the reason why the narrator was so uneasy, but it is also
different in the manner it is presented. All of the stanzas by the dead man have a 5,6,7,6 syllable
count. All of the responses save the last have a 6,6,7,6, syllable count. In the final stanza the last
line is dropped to 5 syllables and the repetition of the question is no longer used. The change in
pattern could signify that the narrator has finally lost his cool. He is so disturbed that it has
affected the pattern of the poem.
Notes – I just wanted to mention that this is only one example of what you could say in an
analysis. I could have said more, but I wanted to keep it shorter. You need to mention the
meaning and how you came up with the meaning of the poem as well as use the terms you know.
Even if you don’t know specific terms, if you notice things (like the syllable count in this poem)
that may be worth mentioning, don’t be afraid to include it in the analysis if it seems pertinent.
The poem itself does not count towards the analysis length..