Analysis of Midnight on the Great Western

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



In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy,
And the roof-lamp's oily flame
Played down on his listless form and face,
Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going,
Or whence he came.

In the band of his hat the journeying boy
Had a ticket stuck; and a string
Around his neck bore the key of his box,
That twinkled gleams of the lamp's sad beams
Like a living thing.

What past can be yours, O journeying boy
Towards a world uknown,
Who calmly, as if incurious quite
On all at stake, can undertake
This plunge alone?

Knows your soul a sphere, O journeying boy,
Our rude realms far above,
Whence with spacious vision you mark and mete
This region of sin that you find you in,
But are not of?


Scheme ABXCB ACXXC ADXXD AEXDE
Poetic Form Etheree  (25%)
Metre 00111101001 0011101 111110101 1110111110 1111 00111101001 10101001 0111101111 110110111 10101 1111111001 01011 1101111 1111110 1101 1110111001 1011101 1110101101 1101111110 1111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 696
Words 133
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 134
Words per stanza (avg) 33
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

40 sec read
177

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…

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    Who wrote the poem "Dreams"?
    A Thomas Hardy
    B Gerard Manley Hopkins
    C Langston Hughes
    D John Donne