Shut in
WAS it the Lord who shut me inBetween these walls of pain?Who drew between me and the sunThe darkening curtains, one by one,Cold storm and bitter rain,Hiding all happy things and fair,The flying birds, the blowing air,And bidding me to lie,All sick of heart and faint and blind,Waiting his will to loose or bind,To give or to deny?
Was it the Lord who shut me inWithin this place of doubt?I chose not doubt, my doubt chose me,Not unpermitted, Lord, of thee,—It had not dared without:What doubt shall venture to uprearAnd whisper in a human ear,If thou, Lord, dost forbid?Yet is it of thy blessed willThat I sit questioning, grieving, chill,Nor joy as once I did?
Is it the Lord that shuts me in?Then I can bear to wait!No place so dark, no place so poor,So strong and fast no prisoning door,Though walled by grievous fate,But out of it goes fair and broadAn unseen pathway, straight to God,By which I mount to thee.When the same Love that shut the doorShall lift the heavy bar once more,And set the prisoner free.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- uprear v. t.
- To raise; to erect.
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- pathway n.
- A footpath; a beaten track; any path or course. Also used figuratively.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Shut in is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Few More Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #49518; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Susan Coolidge, Shut in, in A Few More Verses (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49518, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coolidge-few-more-verses/shut-in.html, id L23486.
Form and metre
Shut in is 33 lines in 3 stanzas of 11 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic 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 AABBACCDEED inA · painA · sunB · oneB · rainA · fairC · airC · lieD · blindE · bindE · denyD
- 2 -ABBACCDEED in · doubtA · meB · theeB · withoutA · uprearC · earC · forbidD · willE · chillE · didD
- 3 -A-BA--CBBC in · waitA · poor · doorB · fateA · broad · god · theeC · doorB · moreB · freeC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| WAS it the Lord who shut me in | 8 | ········ |
| Between these walls of pain? | 6 | ······ |
| Who drew between me and the sun | 8 | ········ |
| The darkening curtains, one by one, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Cold storm and bitter rain, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Hiding all happy things and fair, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| The flying birds, the blowing air, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And bidding me to lie, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| All sick of heart and faint and blind, | 8 | ········ |
| Waiting his will to loose or bind, | 8 | /˘······ |
| To give or to deny? | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Was it the Lord who shut me in | 8 | ········ |
| Within this place of doubt? | 6 | ······ |
| I chose not doubt, my doubt chose me, | 8 | ········ |
| Not unpermitted, Lord, of thee,— | 8 | ········ |
| It had not dared without: | 6 | ······ |
| What doubt shall venture to uprear | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And whisper in a human ear, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| If thou, Lord, dost forbid? | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Yet is it of thy blessed will | 7 | ······· |
| That I sit questioning, grieving, chill, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Nor joy as once I did? | 6 | ······ |
| Is it the Lord that shuts me in? | 8 | ········ |
| Then I can bear to wait! | 6 | ······ |
| No place so dark, no place so poor, | 8 | ········ |
| So strong and fast no prisoning door, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Though walled by grievous fate, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| But out of it goes fair and broad | 8 | ········ |
| An unseen pathway, straight to God, | 8 | ·˘//···· |
| By which I mount to thee. | 6 | ······ |
| When the same Love that shut the door | 8 | ········ |
| Shall lift the heavy bar once more, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And set the prisoner free. | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
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.