Analysis of To Fortune

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



For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,
And when we meet a mutual heart
Come in between, and bid us part;

Bid us on from day to day,
And wish, and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the love of life is gone?

But busy, busy still art thou,
To bind the loveless, joyless vow.
The heart from pleasure to delude,
And join the gentle to the rude.

For pomp, and noise, and senseless show
To make us Nature's joys forego,
Beneath a gay dominion groan,
And put the golden fetter on!

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;
All other blessings I resign,
Make but the dear Amanda mine.


Scheme XXAA BBCX DDEE FFCX GGHH
Poetic Form Quatrain  (40%)
Etheree  (35%)
Metre 11010111 1010111 011101001 10010111 1111111 01010101 11010111 01011111 11010111 1101011 01110101 01010101 11010101 11110101 01010101 01010101 11110111 01011101 11010101 11010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 647
Words 129
Sentences 6
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 101
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
126

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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