He past; a soul of nobler tone
He past; a soul of nobler tone:My spirit loved and loves him yet,Like some poor girl whose heart is setOn one whose rank exceeds her own.
He mixing with his proper sphere,She finds the baseness of her lot;Half jealous of she knows not what,And envying all that meet him there.
The little village looks forlorn;She sighs amid her narrow days,Moving about the household ways,In that dark house where she was born.
The foolish neighbours come and go,And tease her till the day draws by;At night she weeps, ‘How vain am I!How should he love a thing so low?’
Words in this poem
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He past; a soul of nobler tone is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, He past; a soul of nobler tone, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-58.html, id L18418.
Form and metre
He past; a soul of nobler tone is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 6% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABBA toneA · yetB · setB · ownA
- 2 ABBA sphereA · lotB · whatB · thereA
- 3 ABBA forlornA · daysB · waysB · bornA
- 4 ABBA goA · byB · iB · lowA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| He past; a soul of nobler tone: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| My spirit loved and loves him yet, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Like some poor girl whose heart is set | 8 | ········ |
| On one whose rank exceeds her own. | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| He mixing with his proper sphere, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| She finds the baseness of her lot; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Half jealous of she knows not what, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And envying all that meet him there. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The little village looks forlorn; | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| She sighs amid her narrow days, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Moving about the household ways, | 8 | /˘···/·· |
| In that dark house where she was born. | 8 | ········ |
| The foolish neighbours come and go, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And tease her till the day draws by; | 8 | ········ |
| At night she weeps, ‘How vain am I! | 8 | ········ |
| How should he love a thing so low?’ | 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.