Analysis of To An Orphan Child
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother’s;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature’s trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.
The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
For love and loss like mine—
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
But One’s alone!
Scheme | ABABCXCX DXDDBEBE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111010 011101 1101111010 110111 11010111 1111 01010111 111 01110101110 110111 110011110010 101101 10010100 111101 01111111 1101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 509 |
Words | 92 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 193 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 27 sec read
- 133 Views
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