Divine Image
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,All pray in their distress,And to these virtues of delightReturn their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,Is God our Father dear;And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,Is man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heartPity, a human face;And Love, the human form divine;And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,That prays in his distress,Prays to the human form divine:Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,In heathen, Turk, or Jew.Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,There God is dwelling too.
Words in this poem
- clime n.
- A climate; a tract or region of the earth. See Climate. [L. clima. See Climate.]
- turk n.
- A member of any of numerous Tartar tribes of Central Asia, etc.; esp., one of the dominant race in Turkey. [Per. Turk; probably of Tartar origin: cf. F. Turc.]
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Divine Image is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook #574; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, Divine Image, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/divine-image.html, id L01992.
Form and metre
Divine Image is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 -A-A love · distressA · delight · thankfulnessA
- 2 ABAB loveA · dearB · loveA · careB
- 5 -A-A form · jewA · dwell · tooA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| All pray in their distress, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| And to these virtues of delight | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Return their thankfulness. | 6 | ˘/···· |
| For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Is God our Father dear; | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Is man, his child and care. | 6 | ······ |
| For Mercy has a human heart | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Pity, a human face; | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| And Love, the human form divine; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And Peace, the human dress. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Then every man, of every clime, | 10 | ·/˘˘··/˘˘· |
| That prays in his distress, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Prays to the human form divine: | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| And all must love the human form, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In heathen, Turk, or Jew. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| There God is dwelling too. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.