On the Death of a particular Friend
As those we love decay, we die in part,String after string is sever’d from the heart;Till loosen’d life, at last but breathing clay,Without one pang is glad to fall away.
Unhappy he who latest feels the blow!Whose eyes have wept o’er every friend laid low,Dragg’d ling’ring on from partial death to death,Till, dying, all he can resign is--breath.
About this text
On the Death of a particular Friend 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, On the Death of a particular Friend, in Poems (1700–1748), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-james-thomson/on-the-death-of-a-particular-friend.html, id L16156.
Form and metre
On the Death of a particular Friend is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See 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 AABB partA · heartA · clayB · awayB
- 2 AABB blowA · lowA · deathB · breathB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As those we love decay, we die in part, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| String after string is sever’d from the heart; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Till loosen’d life, at last but breathing clay, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Without one pang is glad to fall away. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Unhappy he who latest feels the blow! | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| Whose eyes have wept o’er every friend laid low, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Dragg’d ling’ring on from partial death to death, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Till, dying, all he can resign is--breath. | 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.