4 levels of Eight O'Clock

                                   Eight O’Clock
                                               A.E Houseman

A.E Houseman was an English classical scholar and poet best known to the general public for his cycle of poem. He is now remembered for the poems collected in ‘A Shropshire Lad’. In the poem “Eight O’clock”, Houseman attempts to overthrow the idea that humans are insignificant. Generally, Houseman assumes that we are egocentric; that is we believe we are the center of the universe. He disproved this human psychology using several poetic techniques.

Literal Comprehension
The poetic persona is in the prison, who is standing and hearing each steeple sound. He is going to be executed early in the morning at Eight O’clock. He couldn’t sleep because its hard for him to accept his death .He was counting the bell ring. For him, time is passing very fast. In the morning, the bell was heard all over the town and it reminded the people of their task and pushed them out. For the writer an unpleasant event was about to happen. The hour was quite near against his desire. He was cursing his lock because he could do nothing to protect himself from the death. Then the clock gathered all its strength and stuck eight.

Interpretation:

This poem is trying to show the importance of time.  Time is most powerful and no creature can overcome it. It says that every people in the earth run after money and prestige; But actually our achievement are nothing. Everyone is sure to die. This poem implies that time becomes stronger as a man becomes weaker in this world. The poem might be trying to tell us the feeling of the person who is going to face a terrible thing (death).At that moment he is so much conscious of time. To him every second is important. He lives every second restlessly being conscious of every moment.

Critical Thinking
This is a rhymed poem with classical restraint of emotion, the word struck signifies the striking sound of the clock and it also means the striking of poetic person to death by the hand of time. This is an alliterative poem. The alliteration begins in the first line and ends in the last. ‘Stood’, Sprinkle, ‘strapped’, ‘cursed’, ‘strength’ and ‘struck’ make for a satisfying musical pattern.  Similarly, the rhymes collected as steeple-people, town-down, hour-tower, luck-struck makes the poem melodious and meaningful.
Besides these positive sides, the poem fails somewhere to describe about the poetic person who is going to be executed. The reason for his execution is lacking. Similarly, the poetic person could have remembered his good deeds instead of cursing the time so that he could satisfy himself. And he should have accepted death instead of being unsatisfied with time.

Assimilation:

After reading this poem I have understood the value and importance of time in our life. In the fact of time, we humans and our achievements are dust. I have learnt that time waits for none and a person should be capable to deal with time and situation. I am also endowed with the  knowledge that time becomes stronger as a man becomes weaker in this world. So, we humans and our achievements are dust because noone lives forever and time waits for none.

Not as the writer’s situation as shown in the poem but I have also faced the similar problem. During the examination, there was plenty of time to read but I hesitated and studied at the end of the day. So, I have faced an unexpected result and now I regret for it and have known the importance of time.