Analysis of The King's Experiment
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
It was a wet wan hour in spring,
And Nature met King Doom beside a lane,
Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading
The Mother's smiling reign.
"Why warbles he that skies are fair
And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay,
When I have placed no sunshine in the air
Or glow on earth to-day?"
"'Tis in the comedy of things
That such should be," returned the one of Doom;
"Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,
And he shall call them gloom."
She gave the word: the sun outbroke,
All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a song;
And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke,
Returned the lane along,
Low murmuring: "O this bitter scene,
And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom!
How deadly like this sky, these fields, these treen,
To trappings of the tomb!"
The Beldame then: "The fool and blind!
Such mad perverseness who may apprehend?" -
"Nay; there's no madness in it; thou shalt find
Thy law there," said her friend.
"When Hodge went forth 'twas to his Love,
To make her, ere this eve, his wedded prize,
And Earth, despite the heaviness above,
Was bright as Paradise.
"But I sent on my messenger,
With cunning arrows poisonous and keen,
To take forthwith her laughing life from her,
And dull her little een,
"And white her cheek, and still her breath,
Ere her too buoyant Hodge had reached her side;
So, when he came, he clasped her but in death,
And never as his bride.
"And there's the humour, as I said;
Thy dreary dawn he saw as gleaming gold,
And in thy glistening green and radiant red
Funereal gloom and cold."
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF AGXG HFHF IJIJ KXKX LHLB MNMN OPOP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (90%) Tetractys (20%) Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 110111001 0101110101 01111101 010101 11011111 010111011 111111001 111111 10010011 1111010111 11011101 011111 1101011 11101101 010101011 010101 110011101 011010111 1101111111 110101 0110101 1111101 1111001111 111101 11111111 1101111101 01010101 11110 11111100 1101010001 1111010110 010101 01010101 1011011101 1111110101 010111 0101111 1101111101 001100101001 1101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,602 |
Words | 286 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 118 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 73 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The King's Experiment" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36521/the-king%27s-experiment>.
Discuss this Thomas Hardy poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In