Analysis of To a Pianiste

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



I SAW thee once, I see thee now;
    Thy pure young face, thy noble mien,
Thy truthful eyes, thy radiant brow;
    All childlike, lovely, and serene;
Rapt in harmonious visions proud,
Scarce conscious of the audient crowd.

I heard thee when the instrument,
    Possessed and quickened by thy soul,
Impassioned and intelligent,
    Responded to thy full control
With all the treasures of its dower,
Its sweetest and its grandest power.

I saw and heard with such delight
    As rarely charms our lower sphere
Blind Handel would not miss his sight,
    Thy beauty voiced thus in his ear;
Beethoven in that face would see
His glorious unheard harmony.


Scheme ABABCC DEDEXX FXFXGG
Poetic Form
Metre 11111111 11111101 110111001 1110001 100100101 1101011 11110100 01010111 01000100 01011101 11010111 110011010 11011101 110110101 11011111 11011011 10001111 110001100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 638
Words 109
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 166
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
61

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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