A Sound In The Night Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DECE CFGF FFFF HCIC JKBL GCBC ECGC MNGN ECBC EBCB OKPK BQCQ BCGC BBEB| What do I catch upon the night wind husband | A |
| What is it sounds in this house so eerily | B |
| It seems to be a woman's voice each little while I hear it | C |
| And it much troubles me | B |
| - | |
| 'Tis but the eaves dripping down upon the plinth slopes | D |
| Letting fancies worry thee sure 'tis a foolish thing | E |
| When we were on'y coupled half an hour before the noontide | C |
| And now it's but evening | E |
| - | |
| Yet seems it still a woman's voice outside the castle husband | C |
| And 'tis cold to night and rain beats and this is a lonely place | F |
| Didst thou fathom much of womankind in travel or adventure | G |
| Ere ever thou sawest my face | F |
| - | |
| It may be a tree bride that rubs his arms acrosswise | F |
| If it is not the eaves drip upon the lower slopes | F |
| Or the river at the bend where it whirls about the hatches | F |
| Like a creature that sighs and mopes | F |
| - | |
| Yet it still seems to me like the crying of a woman | H |
| And it saddens me much that so piteous a sound | C |
| On this my bridal night when I would get agone from sorrow | I |
| Should so ghost like wander round | C |
| - | |
| To satisfy thee Love I will strike the flint and steel then | J |
| And set the rush candle up and undo the door | K |
| And take the new horn lantern that we bought upon our journey | B |
| And throw the light over the moor | L |
| - | |
| He struck a light and breeched and booted in the further chamber | G |
| And lit the new horn lantern and went from her sight | C |
| And vanished down the turret and she heard him pass the postern | B |
| And go out into the night | C |
| - | |
| She listened as she lay till she heard his step returning | E |
| And his voice as he unclothed him 'Twas nothing as I said | C |
| But the nor' west wind a blowing from the moor ath'art the river | G |
| And the tree that taps the gurgoyle head | C |
| - | |
| Nay husband you perplex me for if the noise I heard here | M |
| Awaking me from sleep so were but as you avow | N |
| The rain fall and the wind and the tree bough and the river | G |
| Why is it silent now | N |
| - | |
| And why is thy hand and thy clasping arm so shaking | E |
| And thy sleeve and tags of hair so muddy and so wet | C |
| And why feel I thy heart a thumping every time thou kissest me | B |
| And thy breath as if hard to get | C |
| - | |
| He lay there in silence for a while still quickly breathing | E |
| Then started up and walked about the room resentfully | B |
| O woman witch whom I in sooth against my will have wedded | C |
| Why castedst thou thy spells on me | B |
| - | |
| There was one I loved once the cry you heard was her cry | O |
| She came to me to night and her plight was passing sore | K |
| As no woman Yea and it was e'en the cry you heard wife | P |
| But she will cry no more | K |
| - | |
| And now I can't abide thee this place it hath a curse on't | B |
| This farmstead once a castle I'll get me straight away | Q |
| He dressed this time in darkness unspeaking as she listened | C |
| And went ere the dawn turned day | Q |
| - | |
| They found a woman's body at a spot called Rocky Shallow | B |
| Where the Froom stream curves amid the moorland washed aground | C |
| And they searched about for him the yeoman who had darkly known her | G |
| But he could not be found | C |
| - | |
| And the bride left for good and all the farmstead once a castle | B |
| And in a county far away lives mourns and sleeps alone | B |
| And thinks in windy weather that she hears a woman crying | E |
| And sometimes an infant's moan | B |
Thomas Hardy
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