To a Friend
Go, then, and join the murmuring city's throng!Me thou dost leave to solitude and tears;To busy phantasies, and boding fears,Lest ill betide thee; but 'twill not be longEre the hard season shall be past; till thenLive happy; sometimes the forsaken shadeRemembering, and these trees now left to fade;Nor, 'mid the busy scenes and hum of men,Wilt thou my cares forget: in heavinessTo me the hours shall roll, weary and slow,Till mournful autumn past, and all the snowOf winter pale, the glad hour I shall blessThat shall restore thee from the crowd again,To the green hamlet on the peaceful plain.
Words in this poem
- boding a.
- Foreshowing; presaging; ominous.
- betide v. t.
- To happen to; to befall; to come to ; as, woe betide the wanderer. [OE. bitiden; pref. bi-, be- + tiden, fr. AS. tidan, to happen, fr. tid time. See Tide.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- heaviness n.
- The state or quality of being heavy in its various senses; weight; sadness; sluggishness; oppression; thickness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To a Friend is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan, Project Gutenberg ebook #18915; 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 Lisle Bowles, To a Friend, in The Poetical Works, Volume I (1789–1837), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18915, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bowles-sonnets/to-a-friend.html, id L09892.
Form and metre
To a Friend is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 43% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABCDCDEFEFGG throngA · tearsB · fearsA · longB · thenC · shadeD · fadeC · menD · heavinessE · slowF · snowE · blessF · againG · plainG
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Go, then, and join the murmuring city's throng! | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Me thou dost leave to solitude and tears; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| To busy phantasies, and boding fears, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Lest ill betide thee; but 'twill not be long | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Ere the hard season shall be past; till then | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Live happy; sometimes the forsaken shade | 10 | ·/˘/··˘/˘· |
| Remembering, and these trees now left to fade; | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| Nor, 'mid the busy scenes and hum of men, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Wilt thou my cares forget: in heaviness | 10 | ····˘/·/˘˘ |
| To me the hours shall roll, weary and slow, | 10 | ···/··/˘·· |
| Till mournful autumn past, and all the snow | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Of winter pale, the glad hour I shall bless | 10 | ·/˘···/··· |
| That shall restore thee from the crowd again, | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| To the green hamlet on the peaceful plain. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.