Analysis of The Kingdom of God

Francis Thompson 1859 (City of Preston, Lancashire) – 1907 (London)



'_In no Strange Land_'

O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;--
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;--and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,--clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!


Scheme X AAAA BCBC BDBD EFEF GHGH GIGI
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 1111 110100111 110100111 110100111 1111 101111010 01011101 111101010 1110111 110101010 01010101 0111111 111011101 010111010 11010101 11110110 1101011 111111110 10011111 1101011010 10110011 100111110 11010101 011101010 11111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 889
Words 163
Sentences 9
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 100
Words per stanza (avg) 22
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

49 sec read
286

Francis Thompson

The Rt Rev Francis William Banahene Thompson was Bishop of Accra from 1983 to 1996. more…

All Francis Thompson poems | Francis Thompson Books

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