Gifts
Give a man a horse he can ride,Give a man a boat he can sail;And his rank and wealth, his strength and health,On sea nor shore shall fail.
Give a man a pipe he can smoke,Give a man a book he can read:And his home is bright with a calm delight,Though the room be poor indeed.
Give a man a girl he can love,As I, O my love, love thee;And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate,At home, on land, on sea.
Words in this poem
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gifts is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: James Thomson, Gifts, in Poems (1700–1748), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-james-thomson/gifts.html, id L16159.
Form and metre
Gifts is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables.
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 ride · sailA · health · failA
- 2 -A-A smoke · readA · delight · indeedA
- 3 -A-A love · theeA · fate · seaA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Give a man a horse he can ride, | 8 | ········ |
| Give a man a boat he can sail; | 8 | ········ |
| And his rank and wealth, his strength and health, | 9 | ········· |
| On sea nor shore shall fail. | 6 | ······ |
| Give a man a pipe he can smoke, | 8 | ········ |
| Give a man a book he can read: | 8 | ········ |
| And his home is bright with a calm delight, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Though the room be poor indeed. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Give a man a girl he can love, | 8 | ········ |
| As I, O my love, love thee; | 7 | ······· |
| And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate, | 10 | ·········· |
| At home, on land, on sea. | 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.