Analysis of She, to Him, II

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



Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,
Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine,
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love’s decline.

Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!”
And yield a sigh to me—as gift benign,
Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid
To one who could to you her all resign—

And thus reflecting, you will never see
That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,
Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,
But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;
And you amid its fitful masquerade
A Thought—as I in yours but seem to be.


Scheme ABAB CBCB DCDCCD
Poetic Form
Metre 0111111101 1101001111 11011111111 01110011101 1111010111 0101111101 1101010101 1111110101 0101011101 1111011101 1111010111 1011011111 010111001 0111011111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 626
Words 117
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 156
Words per stanza (avg) 38
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 13, 2023

35 sec read
153

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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