Analysis of Lisy's Parting With Her Cat
James Thomson 1700 (Port Glasgow) – 1748 (London)
The dreadful hour with leaden pace approached,
Lashed fiercely on by unrelenting fate,
When Lisy and her bosom Cat must part:
For now to school and pensive needle doomed,
She's banished from her childhood's undashed joy,
And all the pleasing intercourse she kept
With her grey comrade, which has often soothed
Her tender moments, while the world around
Glowed with ambition, business, and vice,
Or lay dissolved in sleep's delicious arms;
And from their dewy orbs the conscious stars
Shed on their friendship influence benign.
But see where mournful Puss, advancing stood
With outstretched tail, casts looks of anxious woe
On melting Lisy, in whose eye the tear
Stood tremulous, and thus would fain have said,
If nature had not tied her struggling tongue:
'Unkind, O! who shall now with fattening milk,
With flesh, with bread, and fish beloved, and meat,
Regale my taste? and at the cheerful fire,
Ah! who shall bask me in their downy lap?
Who shall invite me to the bed, and throw
The bedclothes o'er me in the winter night,
When Eurus roars? Beneath whose soothing hand
Soft shall I purr? But now, when Lisy's gone,
What is the dull officious world to me?
I loathe the thoughts of life:' thus plained the Cat,
While Lisy felt, by sympathetic touch,
These anxious thoughts that in her mind revolved,
And casting on her a desponding look,
She snatched her in her arms with eager grief,
And mewing, thus began:- 'O Cat beloved!
Thou dear companion of my tender years!
Joy of my youth! that oft hast licked my hands
With velvet tonge ne'er stained by mouse's blood;
Oh, gentle Cat! how shall I part with thee?
How dead and heavy will the moments pass
When you are not in my delighted eye,
With Cubi playing, or your flying tail!
How harshly will the softest muslin feel,
And all the silk of schools, while I no more
Have your sleek skin to soothe my softened sense!
How shall I eat while you are not beside
To share the bit? How shall I ever sleep
While I no more your lulling murmurs hear?
Yet we must part - so rigid fate decress-
But never shall your loved idea, dear,
Part from my soul, and when I first can mark
The embroidered figure on the snowy lawn,
Your image shall my needle keen employ.
Hark! now I'm called away! O direful sound!
I come - I come, but first I charge you all-
You - you - and you, particularly you,
O, Mary, Mary, feed her with the best,
Repose her nightly in the warmest couch,
And be a Lisy to her!' - Having said,
She sat her down, and with her head across,
Rushed to the evil which she could not shun,
While a sad mew went knelling to her heart!
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010110101 110110101 110010111 1111010101 11010111 010101011 101111101 0101010101 110101001 1101010101 0111010101 1111010001 1111010101 1011111101 110101101 1100011111 11011101001 01111111001 1111010101 1110101010 1111101101 1101110101 0110100101 111011101 111111111 11011111 1101111101 11110101 1101100101 01010011 1100011101 011011101 1101011101 1111111111 110111111 1101111111 1101010101 1111010101 111011101 1101010101 0101111111 1111111101 1111111101 1101111101 1111110101 111111011 1101110101 1111011111 00101010101 1101110101 111101111 1111111111 110110001 1101010101 0101000101 010110101 1101010101 1101011111 101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,534 |
Words | 478 |
Sentences | 24 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 59 |
Lines Amount | 59 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 2,001 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 473 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:25 min read
- 60 Views
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