Analysis of Gifts

James Thomson 1700 (Port Glasgow) – 1748 (London)



GIVE a man a horse he can ride,
   Give a man a boat he can sail;
And his rank and wealth, his strength and health,
   On sea nor shore shall fail.

Give a man a pipe he can smoke,
   Give a man a book he can read:
And his home is bright with a calm delight,
   Though the room be poor indeed.

Give a man a girl he can love,
   As I, O my love, love thee;
And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate,
   At home, on land, on sea.


Scheme XAXA XXXX XBXB
Poetic Form Quatrain  (67%)
Metre 10101111 10101111 011011101 111111 10101111 10101111 0111110101 1011101 10101111 1111111 0111110111 111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 438
Words 95
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 101
Words per stanza (avg) 31
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 25, 2023

28 sec read
584

James Thomson

James Thomson, who wrote under the pseudonym Bysshe Vanolis, was a Scottish Victorian-era poet famous primarily for the long poem The City of Dreadful Night, an expression of bleak pessimism in a dehumanized, uncaring urban environment. more…

All James Thomson poems | James Thomson Books

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