To a False Friend
Our hands have met, but not our hearts;Our hands will never meet again.Friends, if we have ever been,Friends we cannot now remain:I only know I loved you once,I only know I loved in vain;Our hands have met, but not our hearts;Our hands will never meet again!
Then farewell to heart and hand!I would our hands had never met:Even the outward form of loveMust be resign'd with some regret.Friends, we still might seem to be,If I my wrong could e'er forget;Our hands have join'd but not our hearts:I would our hands had never met!
About this text
To a False Friend 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, To a False Friend, 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/to-a-false-friend.html, id L20055.
Form and metre
To a False Friend is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 AB-B-BAB heartsA · againB · been · remainB · once · vainB · heartsA · againB
- 2 -A-A-A-A hand · metA · love · regretA · be · forgetA · hearts · metA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Our hands have met, but not our hearts; | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Our hands will never meet again. | 9 | /˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Friends, if we have ever been, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Friends we cannot now remain: | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| I only know I loved you once, | 9 | ·/˘···˘·· |
| I only know I loved in vain; | 9 | ·/˘···˘·· |
| Our hands have met, but not our hearts; | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Our hands will never meet again! | 9 | /˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Then farewell to heart and hand! | 7 | ··/···· |
| I would our hands had never met: | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| Even the outward form of love | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Must be resign'd with some regret. | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| Friends, we still might seem to be, | 7 | ······· |
| If I my wrong could e'er forget; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Our hands have join'd but not our hearts: | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| I would our hands had never met! | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
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.