Holy Thursday
Is this a holy thing to seeIn a rich and fruitful land,--Babes reduced to misery,Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?Can it be a song of joy?And so many children poor?It is a land of poverty!
And their son does never shine,And their fields are bleak and bare,And their ways are filled with thorns:It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,And where'er the rain does fall,Babes should never hunger there,Nor poverty the mind appall.
Words in this poem
- appall v. t.
- To make pale; to blanch. [OF. appalir to grow pale, make pale; a (L. ad) + pâlir to grow pale, to make pale, pâle pale. See Pale, a., and cf. Pall.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Holy Thursday is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook #574; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, Holy Thursday, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/holy-thursday-2.html, id L02003.
Form and metre
Holy Thursday is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 6% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A see · landA · misery · handA
- 3 -A-A shine · bareA · thorns · thereA
- 4 -A-A shine · fallA · there · appallA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Is this a holy thing to see | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In a rich and fruitful land,-- | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Babes reduced to misery, | 8 | ·˘/˘·/˘˘ |
| Fed with cold and usurous hand? | 8 | ········ |
| Is that trembling cry a song? | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Can it be a song of joy? | 7 | ······· |
| And so many children poor? | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| It is a land of poverty! | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And their son does never shine, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And their fields are bleak and bare, | 7 | ······· |
| And their ways are filled with thorns: | 8 | ·····˘·· |
| It is eternal winter there. | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| For where'er the sun does shine, | 8 | ·˘˘/···· |
| And where'er the rain does fall, | 8 | ·˘˘/···· |
| Babes should never hunger there, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Nor poverty the mind appall. | 8 | ·/˘˘··˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.