“I Travel as a Phantom Now”
I TRAVEL as a phantom now,For people do not wish to seeIn flesh and blood so bare a boughAs Nature makes of me.
And thus I visit bodilessStrange gloomy households often at odds,And wonder if Man’s consciousnessWas a mistake of God’s.
And next I meet you, and I pause,And think that if mistake it were,As some have said, O then it wasOne that I well can bear!
Words in this poem
- bodiless a.
- Having no body.
- odds n.
- Difference in favor of one and against another; excess of one of two things or numbers over the other; inequality; advantage; superiority; hence, excess of chances; probability. [See Odd, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
“I Travel as a Phantom Now” 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, “I Travel as a Phantom Now”, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/i-travel-as-a-phantom-now.html, id L24131.
Form and metre
“I Travel as a Phantom Now” is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ABAB nowA · seeB · boughA · meB
- 2 ABAB bodilessA · oddsB · consciousnessA · god'sB
- 3 A-A- pauseA · were · wasA · bear
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I TRAVEL as a phantom now, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| For people do not wish to see | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In flesh and blood so bare a bough | 8 | ········ |
| As Nature makes of me. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And thus I visit bodiless | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| Strange gloomy households often at odds, | 9 | ·/˘/·/˘·· |
| And wonder if Man’s consciousness | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| Was a mistake of God’s. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| And next I meet you, and I pause, | 8 | ········ |
| And think that if mistake it were, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| As some have said, O then it was | 8 | ········ |
| One that I well can bear! | 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.