Analysis of The Sun on the Bookcase

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



Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they have fled.

Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day....
But wasted--wasted, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imagined one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done,
Will be mine alway?


Scheme ABBCACB XDDAAAX
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101 101111 011110111 0010111001 1101001111 0111 0111 11010111 011100101 11010111 1101110101 0101111 1111 1111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 447
Words 85
Sentences 6
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 7, 7
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 168
Words per stanza (avg) 42
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 06, 2023

25 sec read
433

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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