At Tea
THE kettle descants in a cozy drone,And the young wife looks in her husband’s face,And then at her guest’s, and shows in her ownHer sense that she fills an envied place;And the visiting lady is all abloom,And says there was never so sweet a room.
And the happy young housewife does not knowThat the woman beside her was first his choice,Till the fates ordained it could not be so . . .Betraying nothing in look or voiceThe guest sits smiling and sips her tea,And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.
Words in this poem
- kettle n.
- A metallic vessel, with a wide mouth, often without a cover, used for heating and boiling water or other liguids. Kettle pins, ninepins; skittles. Shelton. [OE. ketel; cf. AS. cetel, cetil, cytel; akin to D. kjedel, G. kessel, OHG. chezzil, Icel. ketill, SW. kittel, Dan. kjedel, Goth. katils; all perh. fr. L. catill]
- abloom adv.
- In or into bloom; in a blooming state. Masson. [Pref. a- + bloom.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
At Tea 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, At Tea, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/at-tea.html, id L24019.
Form and metre
At Tea is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABCC droneA · faceB · ownA · placeB · abloomC · roomC
- 2 ABAB-- knowA · choiceB · soA · voiceB · tea · yearningly
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE kettle descants in a cozy drone, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And the young wife looks in her husband’s face, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And then at her guest’s, and shows in her own | 10 | ·········· |
| Her sense that she fills an envied place; | 9 | ······/˘· |
| And the visiting lady is all abloom, | 10 | ··/˘/˘··˘/ |
| And says there was never so sweet a room. | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| And the happy young housewife does not know | 10 | ··/˘·/···· |
| That the woman beside her was first his choice, | 11 | ··/˘·/····· |
| Till the fates ordained it could not be so . . . | 10 | ···˘/····· |
| Betraying nothing in look or voice | 9 | ˘/˘/˘···· |
| The guest sits smiling and sips her tea, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And he throws her a stray glance yearningly. | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
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.