Analysis of Mismet

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



He was leaning by a face,
He was looking into eyes,
And he knew a trysting-place,
And he heard seductive sighs;
But the face,
And the eyes,
And the place,
And the sighs,
Were not, alas, the right ones--the ones meet for him--
Though fine and sweet the features, and the feelings all abrim.

II
She was looking at a form,
She was listening for a tread,
She could feel a waft of charm
When a certain name was said;
But the form,
And the tread,
And the charm,
And name said,
Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so,
While the heritor of the right it would have saved her soul to know!


Scheme ABABABABCC XDEFEDEFEGG
Poetic Form
Metre 1110101 1110011 011011 0110101 101 001 001 001 010101101111 1101010001011 1 1110101 11100101 1110111 1010111 101 001 001 011 001110010111 10110111110111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 596
Words 119
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 10, 11
Lines Amount 21
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 224
Words per stanza (avg) 59
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

35 sec read
141

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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