The Masked Face
I FOUND me in a great surging space,At either end a door,And I said: “What is this giddying place,With no firm-fixéd floor,That I knew not of before?”“It is Life,” said a mask-clad face.
I asked: “But how do I come here,Who never wished to come;Can the light and air be made more clear,The floor more quietsome,And the doors set wide? They numbFast-locked, and fill with fear.”
The mask put on a bleak smile then,And said, “O vassal-wight,There once complained a goosequill penTo the scribe of the InfiniteOf the words it had to writeBecause they were past its ken.”
Words in this poem
- wight n.
- A whit; a bit; a jot. [OE. wight, wiht, a wight, a whit, AS. wiht, wuht, a creature, a thing; skin to D. wicht a child, OS. & OHG. wiht a creature, thing, G. wicht a creature, Icel. v]
- scribe n.
- One who writes; a draughtsman; a writer for another; especially, an offical or public writer; an amanuensis or secretary; a notary; a copyist. [L. scriba, fr. scribere to write; cf. Gr. scarify. Cf. Ascribe, Describe, Script, Scrivener, Scrutoire.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Masked Face 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 Masked Face, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/the-masked-face.html, id L24213.
Form and metre
The Masked Face is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
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 ABABBA spaceA · doorB · placeA · floorB · beforeB · faceA
- 2 ABA-BA hereA · comeB · clearA · quietsome · numbB · fearA
- 3 ABABBA thenA · wightB · penA · infiniteB · writeB · kenA
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 FOUND me in a great surging space, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| At either end a door, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And I said: “What is this giddying place, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| With no firm-fixéd floor, | 5 | ····· |
| That I knew not of before?” | 7 | ······· |
| “It is Life,” said a mask-clad face. | 8 | ········ |
| I asked: “But how do I come here, | 8 | ········ |
| Who never wished to come; | 7 | ·/˘·˘·· |
| Can the light and air be made more clear, | 9 | ········· |
| The floor more quietsome, | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| And the doors set wide? They numb | 7 | ······· |
| Fast-locked, and fill with fear.” | 7 | ··˘···· |
| The mask put on a bleak smile then, | 8 | ········ |
| And said, “O vassal-wight, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| There once complained a goosequill pen | 9 | ··˘/····· |
| To the scribe of the Infinite | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Of the words it had to write | 7 | ······· |
| Because they were past its ken.” | 7 | ······· |
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.