Through Foulest Fogs

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



THROUGH foulest fogs of my own sluggish soul,
   Through midnight glooms of all the wide world's guilt,
Through sulphurous cannon-clouds that surge and roll
   Above the steam of blood in anger spilt;
Through all the sombre earth-oppressing piles
   Of old cathedral temples which expand
Sepulchral vaults and monumental aisles,
   Hopeless and freezing in the lifeful land;
I gaze and seek with ever-longing eyes
   For God, the Love-Supreme, all-wise, all-good:
Alas! in vain; for over all the skies
   A dark and awful shadow seems to brood,
A numbing, infinite, eternal gloom:
I tremble in the consciousness of Doom.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
76

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCDEFEGHH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 615
Words 99
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

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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