Analysis of When First I Met Thee
Thomas Moore 1779 (Dublin) – 1852 (Bromham)
When first I met thee, warm and young,
There shone such truth about thee,
And on thy lip such promise hung,
I did not dare to doubt thee.
I saw thee change, yet still relied,
Still clung with hope the fonder,
And thought, though false to all beside,
From me thou couldst not wander.
But go, deceiver! go,
The heart, whose hopes could make it
Trust one so false, so low,
Deserves that thou shouldst break it.
When every tongue thy follies named,
I fled the unwelcome story,
Or found, in even the faults they blamed,
Some gleams of future glory.
I still was true, when nearer friends
Conspired to wrong, to slight thee;
The heart that now thy falsehood rends
Would then have bled to right thee.
But go, deceiver! go --
Some day, perhaps, thou'lt waken
From pleasure's dream, to know
The grief of hearts forsaken.
Even now, though youth its bloom has shed,
No lights of age adorn thee;
The few who loved thee once have fled,
And they who flatter scorn thee.
Thy midnight cup is pledged to slaves,
No genial ties enwreath it;
The smiling there, like light on graves,
Has rank cold hearts beneath it.
Go -- go -- though worlds were thine,
I would not now surrender
One taintless tear of mine
For all thy guilty splendour!
And days may come, thou false one! yet,
When even those ties shall sever!
When thou wilt call, with vain regret,
On her thou'st lost for ever;
On her who, in thy fortune's fall,
With smiles had still received thee,
And gladly died to prove thee all
Her fancy first believed thee.
Go -- go -- 'tis vain to curse,
'Tis weakness to upbraid thee;
Hate cannot wish thee worse
Than guilt and shame have made thee.
Scheme | ababcdcdEfef gbgbhbhbEiei jbjbkfkfldld mdmdnbnbobob |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111101 1111011 01111101 1111111 11111101 1111010 01111101 1111110 1111 0111111 111111 0111111 110011101 11001010 110100111 1111010 11111101 01011111 0111111 1111111 1111 1101110 11111 0111010 101111111 1111011 01111111 0111011 1111111 110111 01011111 1111011 111101 1111010 11111 111101 01111111 11011110 11111101 10111110 10101101 1111011 01011111 0101011 111111 110111 110111 1101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,632 |
Words | 303 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 12, 12, 12 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 312 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 75 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:32 min read
- 32 Views
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