To Jesus Christ
Thy followers to-day are less like Thee,The crucified, than those who made Thee die,Good Jesus, wandering all ways awryFrom rules prescribed in Thy wise charity.The saints now most esteemed love lying lips,Lust, strife, injustice; sweet to them the cryDrawn forth by monstrous pangs from men that die:So many plagues hath not the ApocalypseAs these wherewith they smite Thy friends ignored--Even as I am; search my heart, and know;My life, my sufferings bear Thy stamp and sign.If Thou return to earth, come armed; for lo,Thy foes prepare fresh crosses for Thee, Lord!Not Turks, not Jews, but they who call them Thine.
Words in this poem
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- apocalypse n.
- The revelation delivered to St. John, in the isle of Patmos, near the close of the first century, forming the last book of the New Testament. [L. apocalypsis, Gr. apocalypse.]
- wherewith adv.
- With which; -- used relatively.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Jesus Christ is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella, Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, the John Addington Symonds translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Tommaso Campanella, To Jesus Christ, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campanella-sonnets/to-jesus-christ.html, id L27818.
Form and metre
To Jesus Christ is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See 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 AAA-BAABCDEDCE theeA · dieA · awryA · charity · lipsB · cryA · dieA · apocalypseB · ignoredC · knowD · signE · loD · lordC · thineE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thy followers to-day are less like Thee, | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| The crucified, than those who made Thee die, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Good Jesus, wandering all ways awry | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘··˘/ |
| From rules prescribed in Thy wise charity. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘˘ |
| The saints now most esteemed love lying lips, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| Lust, strife, injustice; sweet to them the cry | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Drawn forth by monstrous pangs from men that die: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| So many plagues hath not the Apocalypse | 10 | ·/····˘/˘· |
| As these wherewith they smite Thy friends ignored-- | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| Even as I am; search my heart, and know; | 10 | /˘········ |
| My life, my sufferings bear Thy stamp and sign. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| If Thou return to earth, come armed; for lo, | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Thy foes prepare fresh crosses for Thee, Lord! | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Not Turks, not Jews, but they who call them Thine. | 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.