Analysis of The Colonel's Solilquy.
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
"The quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . .
It's true I've been accustomed now to home,
And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may grow
More fit to rest than roam.
"But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain;
There's not a little steel beneath the rust;
My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again!
And if I fall, I must.
"God knows that for myself I've scanty care;
Past scrimmages have proved as much to all;
In Eastern lands and South I've had my share
Both of the blade and ball.
"And where those villains ripped me in the flitch
With their old iron in my early time,
I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,
Or at a change of clime.
"And what my mirror shows me in the morning
Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom;
My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning,
Have just a touch of rheum . . .
"Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,'--Ah,
The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune!
Time was when, with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah!'
'Twould lift me to the moon.
"But now it's late to leave behind me one
Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground,
Will not recover as she might have done
In days when hopes abound.
"She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving,
As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show,
Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving
Some twenty years ago.
"I pray those left at home will care for her!
I shall come back; I have before; though when
The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,
Things may not be as then."
Scheme | ABAB XCDC EFEF GXGB HXAB IJIJ KLKL HAHA MDMD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 0101010111 1111010111 0111001111 111111 1111111101 1101010101 11111111101 011111 111111101 11111111 0101011111 110101 0111011001 1111001101 1111111101 110111 01110110010 1111010111 111011101 110111 1101110111 01011111 111101101 111101 1111110111 111101110 1101011111 011101 110101110 1111011101 11110111110 110101 1111111110 1111110111 01110111010 111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,476 |
Words | 285 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 124 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:28 min read
- 56 Views
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"The Colonel's Solilquy." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36491/the-colonel%27s-solilquy.>.
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