Analysis of A Girls's Sin - In Her Eyes

Francis Thompson 1859 (City of Preston, Lancashire) – 1907 (London)



Cross child! red, and frowning so?
'I, the day just over,
Gave a lock of hair to--no!
How DARE you say, my lover?'

He asked you?--Let me understand;
Come, child, let me sound it!
'Of course, he WOULD have asked it, and--
And so--somehow--he--found it.

'He told it out with great loud eyes--
Men have such little wit!
His sin I ever will chastise
Because I gave him it.

'Shameless in me the gift, alas!
In him his open bliss:
But for the privilege he has
A thousand he shall miss!

'His eyes, where once I dreadless laughed,
Call up a burning blot:
I hate him, for his shameful craft
That asked by asking not!'

Luckless boy! and all for hair
He never asked, you said?
'Not just--but then he gazed--I swear
He gazed it from my head!

'His silence on my cheek like breath
I felt in subtle way;
More sweet than aught another saith
Was what he did not say.

'He'll think me vanquished, for this lapse,
Who should be above him;
Perhaps he'll think me light; perhaps--
Perhaps he'll think I--love him!

'Are his eyes conscious and elate,
I hate him that I blush;
Or are they innocent, still I hate--
They mean a thing's to hush.

'Before he nought amiss could do,
Now all things show amiss;
'Twas all my fault, I know that true,
But all my fault was his.

'I hate him for his mute distress,
'Tis insult he should care!
Because my heart's all humbleness,
All pride is in my air.

'With him, each favour that I do
Is bold suit's hallowing text;
Each gift a bastion levelled, to
The next one and the next.

'Each wish whose grant may him befall
Is clogged by those withstood;
He trembles, hoping one means all,
And I, lest perhaps it should.

'Behind me piecemeal gifts I cast,
My fleeing self to save;
And that's the thing must go at last,
For that's the thing he'd have.

'My lock the enforc-ed steel did grate
To cut; its root-thrills came
Down to my bosom. It might sate
His lust for my poor shame!

'His sifted dainty this should be
For a score ambrosial years!
But his too much humility
Alarums me with fears.

'My gracious grace a breach he counts
For graceless escalade;
And, though he's silent ere he mounts,
My watch is not betrayed.

'My heart hides from my soul he's sweet:
Ah dread, if he divine!
One touch, I might fall at his feet,
And he might rise from mine.

'To hear him praise my eyes' brown gleams
Was native, safe delight;
But now it usurpation seems,
Because I've given him right.

'Before I'd have him not remove,
Now would not have him near;
With sacrifice I called on Love,
And the apparition's Fear.'

Foolish to give it!--'Twas my whim,
When he might parted be,
To think that I should stay by him
In a little piece of me.

'He always said my hair was soft--
What touches he will steal!
Each touch and look (and he'll look oft)
I almost thought I'd feel.

'And then, when first he saw the hair,
To think his dear amazement!
As if he wished from skies a star,
And found it in his casement.

'He's kiss the lock--and I had toyed
With dreamed delight of this:
But ah, in proof, delight was void--
I could not SEE his kiss!'

So, fond one, half this agony
Were spared, which my hand hushes,
Could you have played, Sweet, the sweet spy,
And blushed not for your blushes!


Scheme ABAB CDXD EDED XFXF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN OPOP QFQX XIAI QRQR STST UXUX OVOV WXWX YXYX Z1 Z1 2 3 2 3 X4 X4 NWNW X5 X5 IXXC 6 F6 F WAXX
Poetic Form Quatrain  (88%)
Etheree  (27%)
Metre 1110101 101110 1011111 1111110 1111101 111111 11111110 011111 11111111 111101 11110101 011111 10010101 011101 1101011 010111 1111111 110101 11111101 111101 1010111 110111 11111111 111111 11011111 110101 11110101 111111 11110111 111011 01111101 0111111 11110001 111111 111100111 110111 01110111 111101 11111111 111111 11111101 101111 011111 111011 1111111 11111 11010101 011001 11111101 111101 1110111 0110111 0111111 110111 01011111 110111 11011111 111111 11110111 111111 11010111 1010101 11110100 1111 11010111 11001 01110111 111101 11111111 111101 11111111 011111 11111111 110101 1110101 0111011 01111101 111111 1101111 0011 10111111 111101 11111111 0010111 1111111 110111 11010111 11111 01111101 1111010 11111101 011011 11010111 110111 11010111 111111 11111100 011111 11111011 0111110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 3,071
Words 605
Sentences 42
Stanzas 25
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 100
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 95
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:05 min read
43

Francis Thompson

The Rt Rev Francis William Banahene Thompson was Bishop of Accra from 1983 to 1996. more…

All Francis Thompson poems | Francis Thompson Books

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