My Theme

George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)



Of me and of my theme think what thou wilt:
The song of gladness one straight bolt can check.
But I have never stood at Fortune's beck:
Were she and her light crew to run atilt
At my poor holding little would be spilt;
Small were the praise for singing o'er that wreck.
Who courts her dooms to strife his bended neck;
He grasps a blade, not always by the hilt.
Nathless she strikes at random, can be fell
With other than those votaries she deals
The black or brilliant from her thunder-rift.
I say but that this love of Earth reveals
A soul beside our own to quicken, quell,
Irradiate, and through ruinous floods uplift.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
69

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBACDEDCE
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 615
Words 118
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

George Meredith

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. more…

All George Meredith poems | George Meredith Books

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