Fragment of Ballad

Sydney Thompson Dobell 1824 (Kent) – 1874



How shall I sing? the thing I crave
To say is speechless as a Lover's trance.
How shall I give to thee
What even now is all so wholly thine
That but by losing thee in me
Or me in thee it never can be mine?

As a sliding wave of sliding sea
Before my following hand doth dance
Ever and ever onward to the shore,
And breaks and is a thousand things at once,
And from the moment's multiplicity
Takes itself up again into a wave:

So all I feel and see
Breaks to the thousand-fold of Fate and Chance,
But from the moment's multiplicity
Takes itself up into the thought of thee.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

35 sec read
47

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDCD CBXXCA CBCC
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 564
Words 116
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 4

Sydney Thompson Dobell

Sydney Thompson Dobell, English poet and critic, was born at Cranbrook, Kent. more…

All Sydney Thompson Dobell poems | Sydney Thompson Dobell Books

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