The Coquette, and After (Triolets) I
FOR long the cruel wish I knewThat your free heart should ache for meWhile mine should bear no ache for you;For, long—the cruel wish!—I knewHow men can feel, and craved to viewMy triumph—fated not to beFor long! . . . The cruel wish I knewThat your free heart should ache for me!
Words in this poem
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Coquette, and After (Triolets) 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 Coquette, and After (Triolets) 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-coquette-and-after-triolets-i.html, id L16898.
Form and metre
The Coquette, and After (Triolets) I is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAAABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 75% 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 knewA · meB · youA · knewA · viewA · beB · knewA · meB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| FOR long the cruel wish I knew | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That your free heart should ache for me | 8 | ········ |
| While mine should bear no ache for you; | 8 | ········ |
| For, long—the cruel wish!—I knew | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| How men can feel, and craved to view | 8 | ········ |
| My triumph—fated not to be | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| For long! . . . The cruel wish I knew | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That your free heart should ache for me! | 8 | ········ |
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.