Before Knowledge
WHEN I walked roseless tracks and wide,Ere dawned your date for meeting me,O why did you not cry HallooAcross the stretch between, and say:
“We move, while years as yet divide,On closing lines which—though it beYou know me not nor I know you—Will intersect and join some day!”
Then well I had borneEach scraping thorn;But the winters froze,And grew no rose;No bridge bestrodeThe gap at all;No shape you showed,And I heard no call!
About this text
Before Knowledge is in the public domain. This text is taken from Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #3255; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, Before Knowledge, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/before-knowledge.html, id L24119.
Form and metre
Before Knowledge is 16 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABCD, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABCD wideA · meB · hallooC · sayD
- 2 ABCD divideA · beB · youC · dayD
- 3 EEFFGHGH borneE · thornE · frozeF · roseF · bestrodeG · allH · showedG · callH
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| WHEN I walked roseless tracks and wide, | 9 | ········· |
| Ere dawned your date for meeting me, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| O why did you not cry Halloo | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Across the stretch between, and say: | 8 | ˘/······ |
| “We move, while years as yet divide, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| On closing lines which—though it be | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| You know me not nor I know you— | 8 | ········ |
| Will intersect and join some day!” | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Then well I had borne | 5 | ····· |
| Each scraping thorn; | 4 | ·/˘· |
| But the winters froze, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| And grew no rose; | 4 | ···· |
| No bridge bestrode | 4 | ··˘/ |
| The gap at all; | 4 | ···· |
| No shape you showed, | 4 | ···· |
| And I heard no call! | 5 | ····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.