The Barn and Stack and Tree - by A E Houseman

In “The barn and stack and tree”, the poet underscores the repercussions of giving into emotions and its impact on an entire community. Discuss.    

“The Barn and Stack and Tree” was a pastoral lyric composed by the English poet A E Houseman. The poem contains one painful experience of a young unnamed farmer who happens to be the poetic persona of the poem, too. Through the poem the poet suggests that giving into emotions harms not only the person but also the entire community.

 

In the following section, let us look at various parties who were affected by the hasty action of the young farmer. The first person to suffer due to his action was the farmer himself. The young man loses his brother. Fratricide is a serious sin according to the Bible as illustrated by the Old Testament story of Cain and Able. Not only that, he loses his name. He would not be able to use the name he was given by his parents for the fear of being identified by the law. In addition, he would have to live the life of a fugitive – living from post to pillar.  Being a prosperous farmer, the young man would have enjoyed a fair amount of prestige; however, a man on the run would have none of that. In addition, he would have to keep on looking over his shoulder all the time – he can never let down his guard and be at ease.  Looking at the first line of the poem, “Farewell to Barn and Stack and Tree”, his legacy was important to him; he was its custodian and he was expected to hand it over to another generation. Losing that legacy as well as the pain of letting down his ancestors would torment him for the rest of his life. The pain of letting down his mother in her old age is another tragedy the young man would have to face. The poet illustrates this situation through the line “My mother thinks us long away”. If that was not enough, he would also have to give up his friendship with Terrance, his best friend: “And here’s a bloody hand to shake/ And o man, here’s goodbye”. Moreover, the young farmer would not be able to enjoy what he used to enjoy – such as racing at Lamas tide.   Farmers are people who bound to their land and people in their lives. But looking at what we have discussed so far, it is clear that the young farmer would be suffering from unbearable mental agony for the rest of his life because of his hastiness.

The second person to suffer due to the young farmer’s haste was his own brother Maurice whom he murdered. His life was cut short in its prime due to his brother’s jealous hast over a woman they both seem to have been interested in. The young woman herself would surely become the target of malicious gossip and lose her prestige. She might not be able to have a family of her own and would surely face a bleak future because of that.

Though the impact was not as serious as it was on the farmer, his brother, their mother and the young woman, Terrance, the young  man’s lifelong friend too was a victim of his friend’s haste  – he loses a friend.

The impact of the young farmer’s hast is not limited to people: the farm and the animals too would suffer due to negligence as there would be no one to take care of them or inherit them as one bother was dead and the other would be leaving the area to avoid capture. 

In conclusion,   looking at the discussion so far, there is no doubt/ it is certainly beyond doubt that giving into emotions affects not only the person who had given into it but also all the animate and the inanimate connected with his life.