Analysis of The West-Of-Wessex Girl

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



A very West-of-Wessex girl,
As blithe as blithe could be,
Was once well-known to me,
And she would laud her native town,
And hope and hope that we
Might sometime study up and down
Its charms in company.

But never I squired my Wessex girl
In jaunts to Hoe or street
When hearts were high in beat,
Nor saw her in the marbled ways
Where market-people meet
That in her bounding early days
Were friendly with her feet.

Yet now my West-of-Wessex girl,
When midnight hammers slow
From Andrew's, blow by blow,
As phantom draws me by the hand
To the place-Plymouth Hoe-
Where side by side in life, as planned,
We never were to go!

Begun in Plymouth, March 1913


Scheme ABBCBCB ADDEDED AFFGFGF X
Poetic Form
Metre 01011101 111111 111111 01110101 010111 1110101 110100 110111101 011111 110101 11000101 110101 10010101 010101 11111101 11101 11111 11011101 101101 11110111 110011 010101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 638
Words 123
Sentences 4
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7, 1
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 127
Words per stanza (avg) 30
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

37 sec read
71

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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