At a Bridal
WHEN you paced forth, to wait maternity,A dream of other offspring held my mind,Compounded of us twain as Love designed;Rare forms, that corporate now will never be!
Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode’s decree,And each thus found apart, of false desire,A stolid line, whom no high aims will fireAs had fired ours could ever have mingled we;
And, grieved that lives so matched should mis-compose,Each mourn the double waste; and question dareTo the Great Dame whence incarnation flows.Why those high-purposed children never were:What will she answer? That she does not careIf the race all such sovereign types unknows.
Words in this poem
- maternity n.
- The state of being a mother; the character or relation of a mother. [F. maternité, LL. maternitas.]
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
- stolid a.
- Hopelessly insensible or stupid; not easily aroused or excited; dull; impassive; foolish. [L. stolidus.]
- dame n.
- A mistress of a family, who is a lady; a womam in authority; especially, a lady. [F. dame, LL. domna, fr. L. domina mistress, lady, fem. of dominus master, ruler, lord; akin to domare to tame, subdue. See Tame, and cf. Dam mother, Dan, Danger]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
At a Bridal is in the public domain. This text is taken from Wessex Poems and Other Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #3167; 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, At a Bridal, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-wessex-poems/at-a-bridal.html, id L04442.
Form and metre
At a Bridal is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -AA- maternity · mindA · designedA · be
- 2 ABBA decreeA · desireB · fireB · weA
- 3 ABA-BA composeA · dareB · flowsA · were · careB · unknowsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| WHEN you paced forth, to wait maternity, | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| A dream of other offspring held my mind, | 10 | ···/˘/···· |
| Compounded of us twain as Love designed; | 10 | ˘/˘·····˘/ |
| Rare forms, that corporate now will never be! | 9 | ···/˘··/· |
| Should I, too, wed as slave to Mode’s decree, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| And each thus found apart, of false desire, | 10 | ····˘/··˘/ |
| A stolid line, whom no high aims will fire | 10 | ·/˘······/ |
| As had fired ours could ever have mingled we; | 10 | ··//·/·/˘· |
| And, grieved that lives so matched should mis-compose, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Each mourn the double waste; and question dare | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| To the Great Dame whence incarnation flows. | 10 | ·····˘//˘· |
| Why those high-purposed children never were: | 9 | ···/˘/˘/· |
| What will she answer? That she does not care | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| If the race all such sovereign types unknows. | 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.