The Moon Looks in II
I pierce her blindIn her far-off home:She fixes a comb,And says in her mind,“I start in an hour;Whom shall I meet?Won’t the men be sweet,And the women sour!”
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Moon Looks in II 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, The Moon Looks in II, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/the-moon-looks-in-ii.html, id L24085.
Form and metre
The Moon Looks in II is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABBACDDC blindA · homeB · combB · mindA · hourC · meetD · sweetD · sourC
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I pierce her blind | 4 | ···· |
| In her far-off home: | 5 | ····· |
| She fixes a comb, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| And says in her mind, | 5 | ····· |
| “I start in an hour; | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Whom shall I meet? | 4 | ···· |
| Won’t the men be sweet, | 5 | ····· |
| And the women sour!” | 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.