The Comet at Yalbury or Yell’Ham I
IT bends far over Yell’ham Plain,And we, from Yell’ham Height,Stand and regard its fiery train,So soon to swim from sight.
About this text
The Comet at Yalbury or Yell’Ham I 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, The Comet at Yalbury or Yell’Ham I, in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/the-comet-at-yalbury-or-yell-ham-i.html, id L16918.
Form and metre
The Comet at Yalbury or Yell’Ham I is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 7.0 syllables.
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 ABAB plainA · heightB · trainA · sightB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| IT bends far over Yell’ham Plain, | 8 | ········ |
| And we, from Yell’ham Height, | 6 | ······ |
| Stand and regard its fiery train, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| So soon to swim from sight. | 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.