The Riddle I
STRETCHING eyes westOver the sea,Wind foul or fair,Always stood sheProspect-impressed;Solely out thereDid her gaze rest,Never elsewhereSeemed charm to be.
About this text
The Riddle I 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 Riddle I, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/the-riddle-i.html, id L24123.
Form and metre
The Riddle I is 9 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABCBACACB. The metre is trochaic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in trochaic dimeter.
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 ABCBACACB westA · seaB · fairC · sheB · impressedA · thereC · restA · elsewhereC · beB
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 trochaic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| STRETCHING eyes west | 4 | /˘·· |
| Over the sea, | 4 | ···· |
| Wind foul or fair, | 4 | ···· |
| Always stood she | 4 | /··· |
| Prospect-impressed; | 4 | /˘˘/ |
| Solely out there | 4 | /˘·· |
| Did her gaze rest, | 4 | ···· |
| Never elsewhere | 4 | /˘/· |
| Seemed charm to be. | 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.