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 sun 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,Babe can never hunger there,Nor poverty the mind appal.
Words in this poem
- babe n.
- An infant; a young child of either sex; a baby. [Cf. Ir. bab, baban, W. baban, maban.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Holy Thursday is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Project Gutenberg ebook #1934; 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 Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1934, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-songs/holy-thursday-2.html, id L02891.
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 · appalA
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 sun 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 | ·˘˘/···· |
| Babe can never hunger there, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Nor poverty the mind appal. | 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.