Religion
Hassan Bedreddin, clad in rags, ill-shod,Sought the great temple of the living God.The worshippers arose and drove him forth,And one in power beat him with a rod.
"Allah," he cried, "thou seest what I got;Thy servants bar me from the sacred spot.""Be comforted," the Holy One replied;"It is the only place where I am not."
Words in this poem
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- drove n.
- A collection of cattle driven, or cattle collected for driving; a number of animals, as oxen, sheep, or swine, driven in a body. [AS. draf, fr. drifan to drive. See Drive.]
- allah n.
- The name of the Supreme Being, in use among the Arabs and the Mohammedans generally. [contr. fr. the article al the + ilah God.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Religion is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, Religion, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/religion.html, id L27984.
Form and metre
Religion is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AA-A shodA · godA · forth · rodA
- 2 AA-A gotA · spotA · replied · notA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hassan Bedreddin, clad in rags, ill-shod, | 10 | ˘/········ |
| Sought the great temple of the living God. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The worshippers arose and drove him forth, | 10 | ·/˘˘˘/···· |
| And one in power beat him with a rod. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| "Allah," he cried, "thou seest what I got; | 9 | /˘······· |
| Thy servants bar me from the sacred spot." | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| "Be comforted," the Holy One replied; | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘·˘/ |
| "It is the only place where I am not." | 10 | ···/˘····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.