Analysis of Beneath A Photoraph

Francis Thompson 1859 (City of Preston, Lancashire) – 1907 (London)



Phoebus, who taught me art divine,
Here tried his hand where I did mine;
And his white fingers in this face
Set my Fair's sigh-suggesting grace.
O sweetness past profaning guess,
Grievous with its own exquisiteness!
Vesper-like face, its shadows bright
With meanings of sequestered light;
Drooped with shamefast sanctities
She purely fears eyes cannot miss,
Yet would blush to know she IS.
Ah, who can view with passionless glance
This tear-compelling countenance!
He has cozened it to tell
Almost its own miracle.
Yet I, all-viewing though he be,
Methinks saw further here than he;
And, Master gay! I swear I drew
Something the better of the two!


Scheme AABBCBDDBEFGHIJKKLL
Poetic Form
Metre 10111101 11111111 01110011 11110101 110111 101111 1011111 11010101 1111 11011101 1111111 1111111 11010100 111111 111100 11110111 1110111 01011111 10010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 637
Words 110
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 19
Lines Amount 19
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 516
Words per stanza (avg) 108
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
106

Francis Thompson

The Rt Rev Francis William Banahene Thompson was Bishop of Accra from 1983 to 1996. more…

All Francis Thompson poems | Francis Thompson Books

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