A Recusant

James Thomson 1700 (Port Glasgow) – 1748 (London)



THE CHURCH stands there beyond the orchard-blooms:
How yearningly I gaze upon its spire!
Lifted mysterious through the twilight glooms,
Dissolving in the sunset’s golden fire,
Or dim as slender incense morn by morn
Ascending to the blue and open sky.
For ever when my heart feels most forlorn
It murmurs to me with a weary sigh,
How sweet to enter in, to kneel and pray
With all the others whom we love so well!
All disbelief and, doubt might pass away,
All peace float to us with its Sabbath bell.
Conscience replies, There is but one good rest,
Whose head is pillowed upon Truth’s pure breast.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
50

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABACDEDEFGFGHH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 594
Words 109
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

James Thomson

James Thomson, who wrote under the pseudonym Bysshe Vanolis, was a Scottish Victorian-era poet famous primarily for the long poem The City of Dreadful Night, an expression of bleak pessimism in a dehumanized, uncaring urban environment. more…

All James Thomson poems | James Thomson Books

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    Which of these famous poems is written in villanelle form?
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    C The Owl And The Pussycat
    D Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night