Analysis of The Wistful Lady
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
'Love, while you were away there came to me -
From whence I cannot tell -
A plaintive lady pale and passionless,
Who bent her eyes upon me critically,
And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness,
As if she knew me well.'
'I saw no lady of that wistful sort
As I came riding home.
Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain
By memories sadder than she can support,
Or by unhappy vacancy of brain,
To leave her roof and roam?'
'Ah, but she knew me. And before this time
I have seen her, lending ear
To my light outdoor words, and pondering each,
Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime,
As if she fain would close with me in speech,
And yet would not come near.
'And once I saw her beckoning with her hand
As I came into sight
At an upper window. And I at last went out;
But when I reached where she had seemed to stand,
And wandered up and down and searched about,
I found she had vanished quite.'
Then thought I how my dead Love used to say,
With a small smile, when she
Was waning wan, that she would hover round
And show herself after her passing day
To any newer Love I might have found,
But show her not to me.
Scheme | ABCACB DEFDFE GXHGHX IJKIKJ CALXLA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110011111 111101 01010101 11010111000 0111010100 111111 1111011101 111101 0111110101 11001011101 1101010011 110101 1111100111 1110101 1111101001 011101010 1111111101 011111 01110100101 111011 111010011111 1111111111 0101010101 1111101 1111111111 101111 1101111101 0101100101 1101011111 110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,097 |
Words | 226 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 172 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 04, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 73 Views
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