Analysis of The Newcomer's Wife

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



He paused on the sill of a door ajar
That screened a lively liquor-bar,
For the name had reached him through the door
Of her he had married the week before.

'We called her the Hack of the Parade;
But she was discreet in the games she played;
If slightly worn, she's pretty yet,
And gossips, after all, forget.

'And he knows nothing of her past;
I am glad the girls in luck at last;
Such ones, though stale to native eyes,
Newcomers snatch at as a prize.'

'Yes, being a stranger he sees her blent
Of all that's fresh and innocent,
Nor dreams how many a love-campaign
She had enjoyed before his reign!'

That night there was the splash of a fall
Over the slimy harbour-wall:
They searched, and at the deepest place
Found him with crabs upon his face.


Scheme AABB CCDD EEFF CXGG HHII
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1110110101 11010101 101111101 1011100101 110011001 1110100111 11011101 01010101 01110101 111010111 11111101 1011101 1100101101 11110100 111100101 11010111 111101101 10010101 11010101 11110111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 736
Words 145
Sentences 6
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 115
Words per stanza (avg) 28
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

43 sec read
176

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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