Thomas Hood
The man who cloaked his bitterness withinThis winding-sheet of puns and pleasantries,God never gave to look with common eyesUpon a world of anguish and of sin:His brother was the branded man of Lynn;And there are woven with his jollitiesThe nameless and eternal tragediesThat render hope and hopelessness akin.
We laugh, and crown him; but anon we feelA still chord sorrow-swept, -- a weird unrest;And thin dim shadows home to midnight steal,As if the very ghost of mirth were dead --As if the joys of time to dreams had fled,Or sailed away with Ines to the West.
Words in this poem
- lynn n.
- A waterfall. See Lin.
- nameless a.
- Without a name; not having been given a name; as, a nameless star.
- anon adv.
- Straightway; at once. [OE. anoon, anon, anan, lit., in one (moment), fr. AS. on in + an one. See On and One.]
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Thomas Hood is in the public domain. This text is taken from Children of the Night, Project Gutenberg ebook #313; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Thomas Hood, in The Children of the Night (1897), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #313, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/robinson-children-of-night/thomas-hood.html, id L08009.
Form and metre
Thomas Hood is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% 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 ABBAABBA withinA · pleasantriesB · eyesB · sinA · lynnA · jollitiesB · tragediesB · akinA
- 2 ABACCB feelA · unrestB · stealA · deadC · fledC · westB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The man who cloaked his bitterness within | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| This winding-sheet of puns and pleasantries, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| God never gave to look with common eyes | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Upon a world of anguish and of sin: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| His brother was the branded man of Lynn; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And there are woven with his jollities | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| The nameless and eternal tragedies | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘/˘˘ |
| That render hope and hopelessness akin. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘/ |
| We laugh, and crown him; but anon we feel | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| A still chord sorrow-swept, -- a weird unrest; | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And thin dim shadows home to midnight steal, | 10 | ···/···/·· |
| As if the very ghost of mirth were dead -- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| As if the joys of time to dreams had fled, | 10 | ·········· |
| Or sailed away with Ines to the West. | 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.