In the Restaurant
“BUT hear. If you stay, and the child be born,It will pass as your husband’s with the rest,While, if we fly, the teeth of scornWill be gleaming at us from east to west;And the child will come as a life despised;I feel an elopement is ill-advised!”
“O you realize not what it is, my dear,To a woman! Daily and hourly alarmsLest the truth should out. How can I stay here,And nightly take him into my arms!Come to the child no name or fame,Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame.”
Words in this poem
- elopement n.
- The act of eloping; secret departure; -- said of a woman and a man, one or both, who run away from their homes for marriage or for cohabitation.
- realize v. t.
- To make real; to convert from the imaginary or fictitious into the actual; to bring into concrete existence; to accomplish; as, to realize a scheme or project. [Cf. F. réaliser.]
- hourly a.
- Happening or done every hour; occurring hour by hour; frequent; often repeated; renewed hour by hour; continual.
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In the Restaurant 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 Restaurant, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/in-the-restaurant.html, id L24029.
Form and metre
In the Restaurant is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%).
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 bornA · restB · scornA · westB · despisedC · advisedC
- 2 ABABCC dearA · alarmsB · hereA · armsB · fameC · shameC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “BUT hear. If you stay, and the child be born, | 10 | ·········· |
| It will pass as your husband’s with the rest, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| While, if we fly, the teeth of scorn | 8 | ········ |
| Will be gleaming at us from east to west; | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| And the child will come as a life despised; | 10 | ········˘/ |
| I feel an elopement is ill-advised!” | 10 | ···˘/˘··˘/ |
| “O you realize not what it is, my dear, | 10 | ··/······· |
| To a woman! Daily and hourly alarms | 11 | ··/˘/˘·/˘˘/ |
| Lest the truth should out. How can I stay here, | 10 | ·········· |
| And nightly take him into my arms! | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Come to the child no name or fame, | 8 | ········ |
| Let us go, and face it, and bear the shame.” | 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.