Many of you know that I have mixed feelings about Hardy, feeling that a lot of his verse is clumsy. However, I'm not posting this poem to attack him, as this is a poem I like a great deal.
I'll explain the numbers later:
In Church
"And now to God the Father", he ends, (I-3/A-1)
And his voice thrills up to the topmost tiles: (I-2/A-2)
Each listener chokes as he bows and bends, (I-3/A-1)
And emotion pervades the crowded aisles. (I-2/A-2)
Then the preacher glides to the vestry-door, (I-2/A-2)
And shuts it, and thinks he is seen no more. (I-2/A-2)
The door swings softly ajar meanwhile, (I-3/A-1)
And a pupil of his in the Bible class, (I-1/A-3)
Who adores him as one without gloss or guile, (I-1/A-3)
Sees her idol stand with a satisfied smile (I-1/A-3)
And re-enact at the vestry-glass (I-3/A-1)
Each pulpit gesture in deft dumb-show (I-3/A-1)
That had moved the congregation so. (I-3/A-1)
Thomas Hardy
The meter is interesting. Is it iambic tetrameter, or anapestic tetrameter? I'm not sure. 6 lines have 3 iambs and 1 anapest, 4 lines have 2 of each, and 3 lines have 1 iamb and 3 anapests. It's hard to tell which one is the base meter and which the variation, especially since the anapests can occur at either the beginning or end of the line. Another interesting thing is that the poem appears to be a 13-line sonnet, though the stanzas are broken into 6 and 7 lines.
I must say that I am curious to hear what some of you hard-nosed, Hardy-loving metrists have to say about a poem that has 29 iambs and 23 anapests. (If the iambs are the base meter, that means that 44% of the poem is variations.)
Line 10 is a total stopper for me. Here is how I scan it:
sees her I / dol STAND / with a SAT / is fied SMILE
However, I naturally
want to put an emphasis on the first syllable ("Sees"), and once I do, the whole line is thrown off terribly, as the tendency is then to read the first 6 syllables as 3 trochees.
Any comments?
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Caleb
www.poemtree.com
[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited August 07, 2001).]
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