He Wonders About Himself
NO use hoping, or feeling vext,Tugged by a force above or underLike some fantocine, much I wonderWhat I shall find me doing next!
Shall I be rushing where bright eyes be?Shall I be suffering sorrows seven?Shall I be watching the stars of heaven,Thinking one of them looks like thee?
Part is mine of the general Will,Cannot my share in the sum of sourcesBend a digit the poise of forces,And a fair desire fulfil?
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Wonders About Himself 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, He Wonders About Himself, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/he-wonders-about-himself.html, id L24201.
Form and metre
He Wonders About Himself is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%).
See other poems in trochaic pentameter.
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 ABBA vextA · underB · wonderB · nextA
- 2 ABBA beA · sevenB · heavenB · theeA
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 trochaic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| NO use hoping, or feeling vext, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| Tugged by a force above or under | 9 | ········· |
| Like some fantocine, much I wonder | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| What I shall find me doing next! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Shall I be rushing where bright eyes be? | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Shall I be suffering sorrows seven? | 8 | ···/˘/˘/ |
| Shall I be watching the stars of heaven, | 9 | ···/˘···/ |
| Thinking one of them looks like thee? | 8 | /˘······ |
| Part is mine of the general Will, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Cannot my share in the sum of sources | 10 | /˘······/˘ |
| Bend a digit the poise of forces, | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| And a fair desire fulfil? | 8 | ···˘/˘·· |
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.