A Circular
AS “legal representative”I read a missive not my own,On new designs the senders giveFor clothes, in tints as shown.
Here figure blouses, gowns for tea,And presentation-trains of state,Charming ball-dresses, millinery,Warranted up to date.
And this gay-pictured, spring-time shoutOf Fashion, hails what lady proud?Her who before last year was outWas costumed in a shroud.
Words in this poem
- missive a.
- Specially sent; intended or prepared to be sent; as, a letter missive. Ayliffe. [See Missive, n.]
- millinery n.
- The articles made or sold by milliners, as headdresses, hats or bonnets, laces, ribbons, and the like.
- pictured a.
- Furnished with pictures; represented by a picture or pictures; as, a pictured scene.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Circular is in the public domain. This text is taken from Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces, Project Gutenberg ebook #2863; 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, A Circular, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/a-circular.html, id L24054.
Form and metre
A Circular is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ABAB representativeA · ownB · giveA · shownB
- 2 -A-A tea · stateA · millinery · dateA
- 3 ABAB shoutA · proudB · outA · shroudB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| AS “legal representative” | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| I read a missive not my own, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| On new designs the senders give | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| For clothes, in tints as shown. | 6 | ······ |
| Here figure blouses, gowns for tea, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And presentation-trains of state, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Charming ball-dresses, millinery, | 9 | /˘·/˘/˘˘˘ |
| Warranted up to date. | 6 | /˘˘··· |
| And this gay-pictured, spring-time shout | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Of Fashion, hails what lady proud? | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Her who before last year was out | 8 | ········ |
| Was costumed in a shroud. | 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.