Analysis of Upon Nothing
Lord John Wilmot 1647 (Ditchley, Oxfordshire) – 1680 (Woodstock, Oxfordshire)
Nothing, thou elder brother even to shade,
That hadst a being ere the world was made,
And (well fixed) art alone of ending not afraid.
Ere time and place were, time and place were not,
When primitive Nothing Something straight begot,
Then all proceeded from the great united--What?
Something, the general attribute of all,
Severed from thee, its sole original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguished fall.
Yet Something did thy mighty power command,
And from thy fruitful emptiness's hand,
Snatched men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land.
Matter, the wickedest offspring of thy race,
By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace,
And rebel Light obscured thy reverend dusky face.
With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join,
Body, thy foe, with these did leagues combine
To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line.
But turncoat Time assists the foe in vain,
And, bribed by thee, assists thy short-lived reign,
And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again.
Though mysteries are barred from laic eyes,
And the Divine alone with warrant pries
Into thy bosom, where thy truth in private lies,
Yet this of thee the wise may freely say,
Thou from the virtuous nothing takest away,
And to be part of thee the wicked wisely pray.
Great Negative, how vainly would the wise
Inquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise?
Didst thou not stand to point their dull philosophies.
Is, or is not, the two great ends of Fate,
And true or false, the subject of debate,
That perfects, or destroys, the vast designs of Fate,
When they have racked the politician's breast,
Within thy bosom most securely rest,
And, when reduced to thee, are least unsafe and best.
But Nothing, why does Something still permit
That sacred monarchs should at council sit
With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit?
Whist weighty Something modestly abstains
From princes' coffers, and from statesmen's brains,
And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns,
Nothing, who dwellest with fools in grave disguise,
For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise,
Lawn sleeves, and furs, and gowns, when they like thee look wise.
French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy,
Hibernian learning, Scotch civility,
Spaniard's dispatch, Dane's wit are mainly seen in thee.
The great man's gratitude to his best friend,
King's promises, whore's vows, towards thee they bend,
Flow swiftly to thee, and in thee never end.
Scheme | AAABCDEFEGGGHHHIJJKKKLLLMMMLLNOOOPPPQQQHRRLLLSSSTTT |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110101011 1101010111 011101110101 1101010101 11001010101 110101010101 1001001011 1011110100 01110110101 11011101001 0111011 111110101 10011111 1101011101 010101110011 1101010111 1011111110 111101010111 111010101 0111011111 011101111101 110011111 0001011101 011101110101 1111011101 11010010101 011111010101 1100110101 0101010101 111111110100 1111011111 0111001101 11101010111 111100101 0111010101 010111110101 1101110101 110111101 110101111101 110101001 110100111 0101110101 1011110101 11110010101 110101111111 1111010100 11010100 10111110101 011101111 11001101111 11011001101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,350 |
Words | 399 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 51 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,894 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 397 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:02 min read
- 86 Views
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"Upon Nothing" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Sep. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/26022/upon-nothing>.
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