To Certain Friends
I thank Eternal God, that you are mine,Who are His too: courageous and divineMust friendship be, through this great grace of God;And have Eternity for period.
Words in this poem
- thank n.
- A expression of gratitude; an acknowledgment expressive of a sense of favor or kindness received; obligation, claim, or desert, or gratitude; -- now generally used in the plural. [AS. Þanc, Þonc, thanks, favor, thought; akin to OS. thank favor, pleasure, thanks, D. & G. dank thanks, Icel. Þ\'94kk, Dan. tak, Sw. tack, Goth. Þagks thanks; -]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Certain Friends is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #66520; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lionel Johnson, To Certain Friends, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66520, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-lionel-poems/to-certain-friends.html, id L12545.
Form and metre
To Certain Friends is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AABB mineA · divineA · godB · periodB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I thank Eternal God, that you are mine, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Who are His too: courageous and divine | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| Must friendship be, through this great grace of God; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And have Eternity for period. | 9 | ··˘/˘·/˘˘ |
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.