Analysis of On an Invitation to the United States.

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



My ardours for emprize nigh lost
Since Life has bared its bones to me,
I shrink to seek a modern coast
Whose riper times have yet to be;
Where the new regions claim them free
From that long drip of human tears
Which peoples old in tragedy
Have left upon the centuried years.

For, wonning in these ancient lands,
Enchased and lettered as a tomb,
And scored with prints of perished hands,
And chronicled with dates of doom,
Though my own Being bear no bloom
I trace the lives such scenes enshrine,
Give past exemplars present room,
And their experience count as mine.


Scheme XAXAAXAX BCBCCDCD
Poetic Form
Metre 111111 11111111 11110101 1111111 10110111 11111101 11010100 1101011 1101101 1010101 01111101 01001111 11110111 11011101 11010101 010100111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 573
Words 105
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 226
Words per stanza (avg) 52
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 26, 2023

31 sec read
107

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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