The Woman in the Rye
“WHY do you stand in the dripping rye,Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee,When there are firesides near?” said I.“I told him I wished him dead,” said she.
“Yea, cried it in my haste to oneWhom I had loved, whom I well loved still;And die he did. And I hate the sun,And stand here lonely, aching, chill;
“Stand waiting, waiting under skiesThat blow reproach, the while I seeThe rooks sheer off to where he liesWrapt in a peace withheld from me.”
Words in this poem
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Woman in the Rye 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 Woman in the Rye, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/the-woman-in-the-rye.html, id L24062.
Form and metre
The Woman in the Rye is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 ABAB ryeA · kneeB · iA · sheB
- 2 ABAB oneA · stillB · sunA · chillB
- 3 ABAB skiesA · seeB · liesA · meB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “WHY do you stand in the dripping rye, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| When there are firesides near?” said I. | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| “I told him I wished him dead,” said she. | 9 | ········· |
| “Yea, cried it in my haste to one | 8 | ········ |
| Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still; | 9 | ········· |
| And die he did. And I hate the sun, | 9 | ········· |
| And stand here lonely, aching, chill; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| “Stand waiting, waiting under skies | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| That blow reproach, the while I see | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| The rooks sheer off to where he lies | 8 | ········ |
| Wrapt in a peace withheld from 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.