The Five Students
THE sparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath,The sun grows passionate-eyed,And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;As strenuously we stride,—Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,All beating by.
The air is shaken, the high-road hot,Shadowless swoons the day,The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but notWe on our urgent way,—Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,But one—elsewhere.
Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow,And forward still we pressThrough moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,As in the spring hours—yes,Three of us: fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,But—fallen one more.
The leaf drops: earthworms draw it inAt night-time noiselessly,The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin,And yet on the beat are we,—Two of us; fair She, I. But no more left to goThe track we know.
Icicles tag the church-aisle leads,The flag-rope gibbers hoarse,The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,Yet I still stalk the course,—One of us . . . Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:The rest—anon.
Words in this poem
- stride v. t.
- To walk with long steps, especially in a measured or pompous manner. [AS. stridan to stride, to strive; akin to LG. striden, OFries. strida to strive, D. strijden to strive, to contend, G. streiten, OHG. stritan; of uncertain orig]
- shadowless a.
- Having no shadow.
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- anon adv.
- Straightway; at once. [OE. anoon, anon, anan, lit., in one (moment), fr. AS. on in + an one. See On and One.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Five Students 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 Five Students, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/the-five-students.html, id L24181.
Form and metre
The Five Students is 30 lines in 5 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic trimeter.
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 ABABCC bathA · eyedB · pathA · strideB · iC · byC
- 2 ABABCC hotA · dayB · notA · wayB · thereC · elsewhereC
- 3 ABABCC mellowA · pressB · yellowA · yesB · heretoforeC · moreC
- 4 A-A-BB inA · noiselessly · thinA · we · goB · knowB
- 5 -A-A-- leads · hoarseA · heads · courseA · gone · anon
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 |
|---|---|---|
| THE sparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| The sun grows passionate-eyed, | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path; | 11 | ········/˘· |
| As strenuously we stride,— | 7 | ·/˘˘˘·· |
| Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I, | 12 | ············ |
| All beating by. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| The air is shaken, the high-road hot, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Shadowless swoons the day, | 6 | /˘˘··· |
| The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but not | 12 | ···/˘·/˘···· |
| We on our urgent way,— | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there, | 12 | ············ |
| But one—elsewhere. | 4 | ··/· |
| Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| And forward still we press | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Through moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow, | 11 | ··/··/˘··/˘ |
| As in the spring hours—yes, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Three of us: fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore, | 12 | ··········˘/ |
| But—fallen one more. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The leaf drops: earthworms draw it in | 8 | ···/···· |
| At night-time noiselessly, | 7 | ······· |
| The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin, | 11 | ·/˘·····/˘· |
| And yet on the beat are we,— | 7 | ······· |
| Two of us; fair She, I. But no more left to go | 12 | ············ |
| The track we know. | 4 | ···· |
| Icicles tag the church-aisle leads, | 8 | /˘˘····· |
| The flag-rope gibbers hoarse, | 6 | ······ |
| The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads, | 10 | ·········· |
| Yet I still stalk the course,— | 6 | ······ |
| One of us . . . Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone: | 12 | ············ |
| The rest—anon. | 4 | ··˘/ |
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.