Her Secret
THAT love’s dull smart distressed my heartHe shrewdly learnt to see,But that I was in love with a dead manNever suspected he.
He searched for the trace of a pictured face,He watched each missive come,And a note that seemed like a love-lineMade him look frozen and glum.
He dogged my feet to the city street,He followed me to the sea,But not to the neighbouring churchyardDid he dream of following me.
Words in this poem
- pictured a.
- Furnished with pictures; represented by a picture or pictures; as, a pictured scene.
- missive a.
- Specially sent; intended or prepared to be sent; as, a letter missive. Ayliffe. [See Missive, n.]
- glum n.
- Sullenness. Skelton. [See Gloom.]
- dogged a.
- Sullen; morose. [Fron. Dog.]
- neighbouring a.
- Living or being near; adjacent; as, the neighboring nations or countries.
- churchyard n.
- The ground adjoining a church, in which the dead are buried; a cemetery.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Her Secret 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, Her Secret, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/her-secret.html, id L24065.
Form and metre
Her Secret is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%).
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 -A-A heart · seeA · man · heA
- 2 -A-A face · comeA · line · glumA
- 3 -A-A street · seaA · churchyard · meA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| THAT love’s dull smart distressed my heart | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| He shrewdly learnt to see, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| But that I was in love with a dead man | 10 | ·········· |
| Never suspected he. | 6 | /˘˘/˘· |
| He searched for the trace of a pictured face, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| He watched each missive come, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And a note that seemed like a love-line | 9 | ········· |
| Made him look frozen and glum. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| He dogged my feet to the city street, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| He followed me to the sea, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| But not to the neighbouring churchyard | 8 | ····/˘/· |
| Did he dream of following 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.