Analysis of She Charged Me

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



She charged me with having said this and that
To another woman long years before,
In the very parlour where we sat, -

Sat on a night when the endless pour
Of rain on the roof and the road below
Bent the spring of the spirit more and more….

- So charged she me; and the Cupids bow
Of her mouth was hard, and her eyes, and her face,
And her white forefinger lifted slow.

Had she done it gently, or shown a trace
That not too curiously would she view
A folly passed ere her reign had place,

A kiss might have ended it. But I knew
From the fall of each word, and the pause between,
That the curtain would drop upon us two
Ere long, in our play of slave and queen.


Scheme ABA BCB XDC DED EFEF
Poetic Form
Metre 1111101101 1010101101 001010111 110110101 1110100101 1011010101 111100101 10111001001 00110101 1111101101 1111000111 010110111 0111101111 10111100101 1010110111 1101011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 654
Words 137
Sentences 5
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 101
Words per stanza (avg) 27
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 31, 2023

41 sec read
152

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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