In the Moonlight
“O LONELY workman, standing thereIn a dream, why do you stare and stareAt her grave, as no other grave there were?
“If your great gaunt eyes so importuneHer soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon,Maybe you’ll raise her phantom soon!”
“Why, fool, it is what I would rather seeThan all the living folk there be;But alas, there is no such joy for me!”
“Ah—she was one you loved, no doubt,Through good and evil, through rain and drought,And when she passed, all your sun went out?”
“Nay: she was the woman I did not love,Whom all the others were ranked above,Whom during her life I thought nothing of.”
(continued)
Words in this poem
- gaunt a.
- Attenuated, as with fasting or suffering; lean; meager; pinched and grim. [Cf. Norw. gand a thin pointed stick, a tall and thin man, and W. gwan weak.]
- importune a.
- Inopportune; unseasonable. [F. importun, L. importunus; pref. im- not + a derivative from the root of portus harbor, importunus therefore orig. meaning, hard of access. See Port harbor, an]
- maybe adv.
- Perhaps; possibly; peradventure. [For it may be.]
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In the Moonlight 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, In the Moonlight, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/in-the-moonlight.html, id L24033.
Form and metre
In the Moonlight is 16 lines in 6 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 62% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AA- thereA · stareA · were
- 2 -AA importune · moonA · soonA
- 3 AAA seeA · beA · meA
- 4 AAA doubtA · droughtA · outA
- 5 AAA loveA · aboveA · ofA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “O LONELY workman, standing there | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| In a dream, why do you stare and stare | 9 | ········· |
| At her grave, as no other grave there were? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| “If your great gaunt eyes so importune | 9 | ········· |
| Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon, | 10 | ·········· |
| Maybe you’ll raise her phantom soon!” | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| “Why, fool, it is what I would rather see | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Than all the living folk there be; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But alas, there is no such joy for me!” | 10 | ·˘/······· |
| “Ah—she was one you loved, no doubt, | 8 | ········ |
| Through good and evil, through rain and drought, | 8 | ···/···· |
| And when she passed, all your sun went out?” | 9 | ········· |
| “Nay: she was the woman I did not love, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| Whom all the others were ranked above, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Whom during her life I thought nothing of.” | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| (continued) | 3 | ˘/˘ |
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.