Analysis of Seen By The Waits

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



Through snowy woods and shady
We went to play a tune
To the lonely manor-lady
By the light of the Christmas moon.

We violed till, upward glancing
To where a mirror leaned,
We saw her airily dancing,
Deeming her movements screened;

Dancing alone in the room there,
Thin-draped in her robe of night;
Her postures, glassed in the gloom there,
Were a strange phantasmal sight.

She had learnt (we heard when homing)
That her roving spouse was dead;
Why she had danced in the gloaming
We thought, but never said.


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF CGCG
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1101010 111101 10101010 10110101 1111010 110101 110110 10101 10010011 1100111 01010011 00111 11111110 1010111 11110010 111101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 499
Words 92
Sentences 4
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 100
Words per stanza (avg) 23
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

27 sec read
168

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…

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