Heredity
I AM the family face;Flesh perishes, I live on,Projecting trait and traceThrough time to times anon,And leaping from place to placeOver oblivion.
The years-heired feature that canIn curve and voice and eyeDespise the human spanOf durance—that is I;The eternal thing in man,That heeds no call to die.
Words in this poem
- trait n.
- A stroke; a touch. [F., fr. L. tractus, fr. trahere to draw. See Trace, v., and cf. Tract a region, Trace a strap, Tret.]
- anon adv.
- Straightway; at once. [OE. anoon, anon, anan, lit., in one (moment), fr. AS. on in + an one. See On and One.]
- oblivion n.
- The act of forgetting, or the state of being forgotten; cessation of remembrance; forgetfulness. [L. oblivio, akin to oblivisci to forget: cf. OF. oblivion.]
- despise v. t.
- To look down upon with disfavor or contempt; to contemn; to scorn; to disdain; to have a low opinion or contemptuous dislike of. [OF. despis-, in some forms of despire to despise, fr. L. despicere, despectum, to look down upon, despise; de- + spicere, specere, to look. See Spy, and cf. Des]
- durance n.
- Continuance; duration. See Endurance. [OF. durance duration, fr. L. durans, -antis, p. pr. durare to endure, last. See Dure, and cf. Durant.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Heredity 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, Heredity, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/heredity.html, id L24110.
Form and metre
Heredity is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABA-AB faceA · onB · traceA · anon · placeA · oblivionB
- 2 ABABAB canA · eyeB · spanA · iB · manA · dieB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I AM the family face; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Flesh perishes, I live on, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Projecting trait and trace | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Through time to times anon, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| And leaping from place to place | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Over oblivion. | 6 | ··˘/˘˘ |
| The years-heired feature that can | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| In curve and voice and eye | 6 | ······ |
| Despise the human span | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| Of durance—that is I; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The eternal thing in man, | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| That heeds no call to die. | 6 | ······ |
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.