Analysis of In The Moonlight

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



"O lonely workman, standing there
In a dream, why do you stare and stare
At her grave, as no other grave where there?"

"If your great gaunt eyes so importune
Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon,
Maybe you'll raise her phantom soon!"

"Why, fool, it is what I would rather see
Than all the living folk there be;
But alas, there is no such joy for me!"

"Ah - she was one you loved, no doubt,
Through good and evil, through rain and drought,
And when she passed, all your sun went out?"

"Nay: she was the woman I did not love,
Whom all the other were ranked above,
Whom during her life I thought nothing of."


Scheme AAA BBB CCC DDD EEE
Poetic Form Triplet
Metre 11010101 001111101 1011110111 1111111 0110111111 10110101 1111111101 11010111 1011111111 11111111 110101101 011111111 1110101111 110100101 1100111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 613
Words 127
Sentences 6
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
Lines Amount 15
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 92
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 28, 2023

36 sec read
176

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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