A Few Lines on Completing Forty-Seven
When I reflect with serious sense,While years and years run on,How soon I may be summoned hence--There's cook a-calling John.
Our lives are built so frail and poor,On sand and not on rocks,We're hourly standing at Death's door--There's some one double knocks.
All human days have settled terms,Our fates we cannot force;This flesh of mine will feed the worms--They're come to lunch of course!
And when my body's turned to clay,And dear friends hear my knell,Oh let them give a sigh and say--I hear the upstairs bell!
Words in this poem
- hourly a.
- Happening or done every hour; occurring hour by hour; frequent; often repeated; renewed hour by hour; continual.
- lunch n.
- A luncheon; specifically, a light repast between breakfast and dinner. [Of uncertain etymol. Cf. Prov. Eng. nunc a lump.]
- upstairs adv.
- Up the stairs; in or toward an upper story.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Few Lines on Completing Forty-Seven is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hood, A Few Lines on Completing Forty-Seven, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/a-few-lines-on-completing-forty-seven.html, id L20209.
Form and metre
A Few Lines on Completing Forty-Seven is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB senseA · onB · henceA · johnB
- 2 -A-A poor · rocksA · door · knocksA
- 3 ABAB termsA · forceB · wormsA · courseB
- 4 ABAB clayA · knellB · sayA · bellB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When I reflect with serious sense, | 9 | ··˘/·/˘˘· |
| While years and years run on, | 6 | ······ |
| How soon I may be summoned hence-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| There's cook a-calling John. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Our lives are built so frail and poor, | 9 | /˘······· |
| On sand and not on rocks, | 6 | ······ |
| We're hourly standing at Death's door-- | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| There's some one double knocks. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| All human days have settled terms, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Our fates we cannot force; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| This flesh of mine will feed the worms-- | 8 | ········ |
| They're come to lunch of course! | 6 | ······ |
| And when my body's turned to clay, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And dear friends hear my knell, | 6 | ······ |
| Oh let them give a sigh and say-- | 8 | ········ |
| I hear the upstairs bell! | 6 | ···˘/· |
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.