Analysis of Ditty
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
(E. L. G.)
BENEATH a knap where flown
Nestlings play,
Within walls of weathered stone,
Far away
From the files of formal houses,
By the bough the firstling browses,
Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet,
No man barters, no man sells
Where she dwells.
Upon that fabric fair
"Here is she!"
Seems written everywhere
Unto me.
But to friends and nodding neighbors,
Fellow wights in lot and labors,
Who descry the times as I,
No such lucid legend tells
Where she dwells.
Should I lapse to what I was
In days by--
(Such cannot be, but because
Some loves die
Let me feign it)--none would notice
That where she I know by rote is
Spread a strange and withering change,
Like a drying of the wells
Where she dwells.
To feel I might have kissed--
Loved as true--
Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed
My life through,
Had I never wandered near her,
Is a smart severe--severer
In the thought that she is nought,
Even as I, beyond the dells
Where she dwells.
And Devotion droops her glance
To recall
What bond-servants of Chance
We are all.
I but found her in that, going
On my errant path unknowing,
I did not out-skirt the spot
That no spot on earth excels--
Where she dwells!
Scheme | a bcbcddefF gagahhifF xixixxxfF jkjklledF mnmnooxfF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111 010111 101 0111101 101 10111010 101011 1011101 111111 111 011101 111 11010 101 11101010 10101010 110111 1110101 111 1111111 011 1101101 111 11111110 11111111 10101001 1010101 111 111111 111 11111 111 11101010 1010110 0011111 10110101 111 0010101 11 111011 111 11100110 11101010 1111101 1111101 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,386 |
Words | 217 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 46 |
Letters per line (avg) | 19 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 149 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:04 min read
- 109 Views
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"Ditty" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36356/ditty>.
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