You thought my heart too far diseased
You thought my heart too far diseased;You wonder when my fancies playTo find me gay among the gay,Like one with any trifle pleased.
The shade by which my life was crost,Which makes a desert in the mind,Has made me kindly with my kind,And like to him whose sight is lost;
Whose feet are guided thro’ the land,Whose jest among his friends is free,Who takes the children on his knee,And winds their curls about his hand:
He plays with threads, he beats his chairFor pastime, dreaming of the sky;His inner day can never die,His night of loss is always there.
Words in this poem
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
- pastime n.
- That which amuses, and serves to make time pass agreeably; sport; amusement; diversion. [Pass + time: cf. F. passetemps.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
You thought my heart too far diseased 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, You thought my heart too far diseased, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-64.html, id L18424.
Form and metre
You thought my heart too far diseased 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 97%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 12% 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 diseasedA · playB · gayB · pleasedA
- 2 ABBA crostA · mindB · kindB · lostA
- 3 ABBA landA · freeB · kneeB · handA
- 4 ABBA chairA · skyB · dieB · thereA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You thought my heart too far diseased; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| You wonder when my fancies play | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| To find me gay among the gay, | 8 | ········ |
| Like one with any trifle pleased. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The shade by which my life was crost, | 8 | ········ |
| Which makes a desert in the mind, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Has made me kindly with my kind, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And like to him whose sight is lost; | 8 | ········ |
| Whose feet are guided thro’ the land, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Whose jest among his friends is free, | 8 | ········ |
| Who takes the children on his knee, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And winds their curls about his hand: | 8 | ········ |
| He plays with threads, he beats his chair | 8 | ········ |
| For pastime, dreaming of the sky; | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| His inner day can never die, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| His night of loss is always there. | 8 | ·····/·· |
On this poem
He says that his own grief has made him feel kindly towards others; and that he is like a blind man, who though needing a hand to lead him, can still jest with his friends, take children on his knee and play with them, and dream of the sky he can no longer see:
"His inner day can never die, His night of loss is always there."
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.