Analysis of Last Words to a Dumb Friend
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
Pet was never mourned as you,
Purrer of the spotless hue,
Plumy tail, and wistful gaze
While you humoured our queer ways,
Or outshrilled your morning call
Up the stairs and through the hall -
Foot suspended in its fall -
While, expectant, you would stand
Arched, to meet the stroking hand;
Till your way you chose to wend
Yonder, to your tragic end.
Never another pet for me!
Let your place all vacant be;
Better blankness day by day
Than companion torn away.
Better bid his memory fade,
Better blot each mark he made,
Selfishly escape distress
By contrived forgetfulness,
Than preserve his prints to make
Every morn and eve an ache.
From the chair whereon he sat
Sweep his fur, nor wince thereat;
Rake his little pathways out
Mid the bushes roundabout;
Smooth away his talons’ mark
From the claw-worn pine-tree bark,
Where he climbed as dusk embrowned,
Waiting us who loitered round.
Strange it is this speechless thing,
Subject to our mastering,
Subject for his life and food
To our gift, and time, and mood;
Timid pensioner of us Powers,
His existence ruled by ours,
Should - by crossing at a breath
Into safe and shielded death,
By the merely taking hence
Of his insignificance -
Loom as largened to the sense,
Shape as part, above man’s will,
Of the Imperturbable.
As a prisoner, flight debarred,
Exercising in a yard,
Still retain I, troubled, shaken,
Mean estate, by him forsaken;
And this home, which scarcely took
Impress from his little look,
By his faring to the Dim
Grows all eloquent of him.
Housemate, I can think you still
Bounding to the window-sill,
Over which I vaguely see
Your small mound beneath the tree,
Showing in the autumn shade
That you moulder where you played.
Scheme | AABBCCCDDEE FFGGHHXBII XDJJKKDX LLMMNNOOPXPQC DXRRSSTT QQFFHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110111 110101 110101 1111011 111101 1010101 1010011 1010111 1110101 1111111 1011101 10010111 1111101 101111 1010101 10111001 1011111 10101 1011 1011111 10010111 101111 111111 111011 101010 1011101 1011111 111111 101111 1111101 01110100 0111101 11010101 101001110 10101110 1110101 0110101 1010101 110100 111101 1110111 101 1010011 100001 10111010 10111010 0111101 0111101 1110101 1110011 111111 1010101 1011101 1110101 1000101 1110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,646 |
Words | 299 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 10, 8, 13, 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 222 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 241 Views
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"Last Words to a Dumb Friend" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36421/last-words-to-a-dumb-friend>.
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