Hodge
"For my peart, it's a thought o' mine,It be the fancy farming line,Like yonder gemman,--him I mean,As took the Willa nigh the Green,--And turn'd his cattle in the wheat;And gave his porkers hay to eat;And sent his footman up to town,To ax the Lonnon gentry down,To be so kind as make his hay,Exactly on St. Swithin's day;--With consequences you may guess--That's Hagricultural Distress."
Words in this poem
- peart a.
- Active; lively; brisk; smart; -- often applied to convalescents; as, she is quite peart to-day. [O. Eng. & Colloq. U. [A variant of pert, a.]
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
- gentry n.
- Birth; condition; rank by birth. [OE. genterie, gentrie, noble birth, nobility, cf. gentrise, and OF. gentelise, genterise, E. gentilesse, also OE. genteleri high-mindedness. See Gent, a., Gentl]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hodge is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; 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 Hood, Hodge, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/hodge.html, id L20172.
Form and metre
Hodge is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFF mineA · lineA · meanB · greenB · wheatC · eatC · townD · downD · hayE · dayE · guessF · distressF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "For my peart, it's a thought o' mine, | 8 | ········ |
| It be the fancy farming line, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Like yonder gemman,--him I mean, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As took the Willa nigh the Green,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And turn'd his cattle in the wheat; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And gave his porkers hay to eat; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And sent his footman up to town, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To ax the Lonnon gentry down, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To be so kind as make his hay, | 8 | ········ |
| Exactly on St. Swithin's day;-- | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| With consequences you may guess-- | 8 | ·/˘·˘··· |
| That's Hagricultural Distress." | 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.