A Confession To A Friend in Trouble
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
YOUR troubles shrink not, though I feel them less
Here, far away, than when I tarried near;
I even smile old smiles--with listlessness--
Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.
A thought too strange to house within my brain
Haunting its outer precincts I discern:
--That I will not show zeal again to learn
Your griefs, and, sharing them, renew my pain....
It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer
That shapes its lawless figure on the main,
And each new impulse tends to make outflee
The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here;
Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be
Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 140 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAB CDDC ECXEFF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 699 |
Words | 111 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 6 |
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"A Confession To A Friend in Trouble" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/36302/a-confession-to-a-friend-in-trouble>.
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