Analysis of To A Child

Francis Thompson 1859 (City of Preston, Lancashire) – 1907 (London)



Whenas my life shall time with funeral tread
The heavy death-drum of the beaten hours,
Following, sole mourner, mine own manhood dead,
Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;
When I you love am no more I you love,
But go with unsubservient feet, behold
Your dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove;--
A new man, mock-ed with misname of old;
When shamed Love keep his ruined lodging, elf!
When, ceremented in mouldering memory,
Myself is hears-ed underneath myself,
And I am but the monument of me:-
O to that tomb be tender then, which bears
Only the name of him it sepulchres!


Scheme ABABCDEDFGFGHB
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111001 01011101010 1001101111 10111101110 1111111111 1111101 1111111111 011111111 1111110101 1101100 1111011 0111010011 1111110111 10011111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 598
Words 111
Sentences 3
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 471
Words per stanza (avg) 107
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
59

Francis Thompson

The Rt Rev Francis William Banahene Thompson was Bishop of Accra from 1983 to 1996. more…

All Francis Thompson poems | Francis Thompson Books

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