Bredon Hill is located in Worcestershire, England, where the poet A. E. Housman was born.
Housman’s “Bredon Hill” from A Shropshire Lad features a sad story about a lover who lost his sweetheart. The poem consists of seven stanzas, each with the rime scheme, ABCBB. The theme of lost love is dramatized through the symbolic sound of church bells.
First Stanza: “In summertime on Bredon”
In the first stanza, the speaker begins his narrative by announcing, “In summertime on Bredon / The bells they sound so clear.”
The speaker then reports that on a Sunday morning from this location one can hear the beautiful chiming of bells emanating from churches “in steeples far and near” from the neighboring counties. The speaker then declares that the sound is “[a] happy noise to hear.”
Second Stanza: “Here of a Sunday morning”
The speaker adds to the scene by placing himself and his “love” within it. The two lovers would climb the hill, from where they could view the neighboring counties, whose colors shone brightly with their fields growing in the summer sun. They could also hear “larks so high / About us in the sky.”
Third Stanza: “The bells would ring to call her”
The speaker reports that the church bell seemed to be calling him and his sweetheart and all “good people” to come and attend service, “come and pray.” But his sweetheart preferred to remain with him on Bredon Hill.
Fourth Stanza: “And I would turn and answer”
The speaker then addresses the church bells telling them that when they ring for the couple’s wedding, they will “come to church in time.” He is implying that until then they will prefer to spend their time together enjoying on the company of each other, while they happily listen to the bells from afar.
Fifth Stanza: “But when the snows at Christmas”
The cheerful times of summer give way to winter sorrow. The man’s sweetheart “stole out unbeknown / And went to church alone.” At an early age, the young woman suddenly dies, and instead of attending her wedding, others will be attending her funeral. When the “snows at Christmas” covered Bredon Hill, grief blanketed the heart of the speaker.
Sixth Stanza: “They tolled the one bell only”
Instead of the merry bells that the couple had enjoyed during the summer, only “one bell” now tolls for the departed lover. He would not be attending a church service as a groom but as a mourner along with the other mourners.
Seventh Stanza: “The bells they sound on Bredon”
Sometime after the death and burial of his sweetheart, the speaker still hears “steeples hum” as “the bells [ ] sound on Bredon.” The bells still announce their summons for all “good people” to come to service.
But instead of the happy tone that filled the speaker when he heard them with his sweetheart, they merely sound like “noisy bells” to him now, and he bids them “be dumb.” But he, nevertheless, accepts their reminder and determines that he will go to church, for now he has no companion, save the Divine, with whom to enjoy the bell sounds.
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