The Blinded Bird
SO zestfully canst thou sing?And all this indignity,With God’s consent, on thee!Blinded ere yet a-wingBy the red-hot needle thou,I stand and wonder howSo zestfully thou canst sing!
Resenting not such wrong,Thy grievous pain forgot,Eternal dark thy lot,Groping thy whole life long;After that stab of fire;Enjailed in pitiless wire;Resenting not such wrong!
Who hath charity? This bird.Who suffereth long and is kind,Is not provoked, though blindAnd alive ensepulchred?Who hopeth, endureth all things?Who thinketh no evil, but sings?Who is divine? This bird.
About this text
The Blinded Bird 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, The Blinded Bird, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/the-blinded-bird.html, id L24120.
Form and metre
The Blinded Bird is 21 lines in 3 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
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 A--ABBA singA · indignity · thee · wingA · thouB · howB · singA
- 2 ABBACCA wrongA · forgotB · lotB · longA · fireC · wireC · wrongA
- 3 ABB-CCA birdA · kindB · blindB · ensepulchred · thingsC · singsC · birdA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| SO zestfully canst thou sing? | 7 | ······· |
| And all this indignity, | 7 | ···˘/˘˘ |
| With God’s consent, on thee! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Blinded ere yet a-wing | 6 | /˘···· |
| By the red-hot needle thou, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| I stand and wonder how | 6 | ···/˘· |
| So zestfully thou canst sing! | 7 | ······· |
| Resenting not such wrong, | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Thy grievous pain forgot, | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Eternal dark thy lot, | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Groping thy whole life long; | 6 | /˘···· |
| After that stab of fire; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Enjailed in pitiless wire; | 6 | ···/˘/ |
| Resenting not such wrong! | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Who hath charity? This bird. | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Who suffereth long and is kind, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Is not provoked, though blind | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| And alive ensepulchred? | 6 | ·˘/··· |
| Who hopeth, endureth all things? | 8 | ···˘/˘·· |
| Who thinketh no evil, but sings? | 7 | ·/˘·/·· |
| Who is divine? This bird. | 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.