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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
126

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXAA BBCX DDEE FFCX GGHH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 647
Words 129
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

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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