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Rubenadriaan Posted 12 years ago
Vocabulary

John Keats question

Here's an excerpt of Keats' poem To Hope

Whene’er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;


My questions are:

1. Why do some lines in this poem have a semicolon, and others not (sometimes none appears in a whole stanza)?
2. What does 'my morbid fancy cheer' mean? What construction is used in this line?

Thanks a real lot,

P.S. this is for my personal learning, not homework or something

EDIT: There's an indentation in the second line 'Tells to...'
  

Top answer

Generally speaking, in modern English a semi-colon indicates that the writer wants a brief pause between two closely connected thoughts. O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer; The poet addresses a personified Hope rhetorically. to Hope.

— Clive

  • Generally speaking, in modern English a semi-colon indicates that the writer wants a brief pause between two closely connected thoughts.
  • O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer; The poet addresses a personified Hope rhetorically.
  • to Hope.
  • eg Hey Hope, cheer me up!
  • I'm feeling morbid!
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3 Answers
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Generally speaking, in modern English a semi-colon indicates that the writer wants a brief pause between two closely connected thoughts.

O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;
The poet addresses a personified Hope rhetorically. A more normal word order is
O bright-eyed Hop
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Thank you!

Does anybody also know what boding means here? Predicting? That still doesn't make sense to me.

So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,


Kind regards
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RubenadriaanDoes anybody also know what boding means here? Predicting? That still doesn't make sense to me.So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
It is probably more common to say foreboding than boding nowadays, but the idea is having a feeling that something bad is going to happen. Here is is used as an adjective, but with generally the same meanin
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