From Job I
A spirit passed before me: I beheldThe face of Immortality unveiled--Deep Sleep came down on every eye save mine--And there it stood,--all formless--but divine:Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:
About this text
From Job I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3, Project Gutenberg ebook #21811; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, From Job I, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/from-job-i.html, id L23965.
Form and metre
From Job I is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 AABBCC beheldA · unveiledA · mineB · divineB · quakeC · spakeC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A spirit passed before me: I beheld | 9 | ·/·····˘/ |
| The face of Immortality unveiled-- | 9 | ····˘/˘˘/ |
| Deep Sleep came down on every eye save mine-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And there it stood,--all formless--but divine: | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake; | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake: | 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.