Analysis of At A Bridal

Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)



WHEN you paced forth, to wait maternity,
       A dream of other offspring held my mind,
       Compounded of us twain as Love designed;
     Rare forms, that corporate now will never be!

Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode's decree,
       And each thus found apart, of false desire,
       A stolid line, whom no high aims will fire
     As had fired ours could ever have mingled we;

And, grieved that lives so matched should miscompose,
       Each mourn the double waste; and question dare
     To the Great Dame whence incarnation flows,
       Why those high-purposed children never were:
       What will she answer? That she does not care
     If the race all such sovereign types unknows.


Scheme ABBA ACCA DEDCED
Poetic Form
Metre 1111110100 011101111 0101111101 11110011101 1111111101 01110111010 01011111110 1110101101101 01111111 1101010101 1011101101 111110100 1111011111 101111011
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 702
Words 113
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 165
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
162

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, was not a Scottish Minister, not a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland nor a Professor of Eccesiastical History at Edinburgh University. more…

All Thomas Hardy poems | Thomas Hardy Books

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