The 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 heart;Pity, 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
The Divine Image is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Project Gutenberg ebook #1934; 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, The Divine Image, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1934, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-songs/the-divine-image.html, id L02880.
Form and metre
The 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. 5% 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.