“How Great My Grief” (Triolet)
HOW great my grief, my joys how few,Since first it was my fate to know thee!—Have the slow years not brought to viewHow great my grief, my joys how few,Nor memory shaped old times anew,Nor loving-kindness helped to show theeHow great my grief, my joys how few,Since first it was my fate to know thee?
About this text
“How Great My Grief” (Triolet) is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; 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, “How Great My Grief” (Triolet), in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/how-great-my-grief-triolet.html, id L16896.
Form and metre
“How Great My Grief” (Triolet) is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAAABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAAABAB fewA · theeB · viewA · fewA · anewA · theeB · fewA · theeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| HOW great my grief, my joys how few, | 8 | ········ |
| Since first it was my fate to know thee! | 9 | ········· |
| —Have the slow years not brought to view | 8 | ········ |
| How great my grief, my joys how few, | 8 | ········ |
| Nor memory shaped old times anew, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| How great my grief, my joys how few, | 8 | ········ |
| Since first it was my fate to know thee? | 9 | ········· |
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.