Andrew's Wiki
Eight Oclock (changes)

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Content

• A short narrative of a person about to be executed by hanging
• He counts the time by the church clock, and then his time strikes; the poem ends
• The clock has diff quality to diff mindsets: the speaker says that the clock “sprinkles” the time down on the town, but then later says it “tosses” the time down, and then finally the clock “collected…its strength, and struck” as if the clock itself DID the execution
  • Inevitability of this person’s death, apparently
  • Clock becomes a curse: it’s the popular Housman theme, about time being against you
    • The doomed man “cursed his luck,” but the speaker does not share this attitude; luck for him means good stuff b/c the bad stuff will always happen, no chance at all but a reality

Form

• Like “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” it is two verses of four lines each
• It does have metrical complexity, though, b/c last lines are half length (four instead of eight syllables)
  • as if those truncated lines represent his truncated life