Were My Bosom as False as Thou Deem'St It to Be
Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,I need not have wandered from far Galilee;It was but abjuring my creed to effaceThe curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.
If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!If the slave only sin--thou art spotless and free!If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,Live on in thy faith--but in mine I will die.
I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow,As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;In his hand is my heart and my hope--and in thineThe land and the life which for him I resign.
Words in this poem
- outcast a.
- Cast out; degraded. [Cf. Sw. utkasta to cast out.]
- prosper v. t.
- To favor; to render successful. [F. prospérer v. i., or L. prosperare, v. i., or L. prosperare, v. t., fr. prosper or prosperus. See Prosperous.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Were My Bosom as False as Thou Deem'St It to Be 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, Were My Bosom as False as Thou Deem'St It to Be, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/were-my-bosom-as-false-as-thou-deem-st-it-to-be.html, id L23959.
Form and metre
Were My Bosom as False as Thou Deem'St It to Be is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
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 AABB beA · galileeA · effaceB · raceB
- 2 AABB theeA · freeA · highB · dieB
- 3 AABB bestowA · knowA · thineB · resignB
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, | 12 | ··/˘········ |
| I need not have wandered from far Galilee; | 12 | ····/˘˘··/˘· |
| It was but abjuring my creed to efface | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race. | 11 | ··········· |
| If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee! | 12 | ···/˘/˘····· |
| If the slave only sin--thou art spotless and free! | 12 | ···/˘···/˘·· |
| If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high, | 12 | ··/·····/··· |
| Live on in thy faith--but in mine I will die. | 11 | ··········· |
| I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, | 12 | ··········˘/ |
| As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know; | 12 | ····/···/˘·· |
| In his hand is my heart and my hope--and in thine | 12 | ············ |
| The land and the life which for him I resign. | 11 | ·········˘/ |
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.