Far from love the Heavenly Father
Far from love the Heavenly FatherLeads the chosen child;Oftener through realm of briarThan the meadow mild,
Oftener by the claw of dragonThan the hand of friend,Guides the little one predestinedTo the native land.
Words in this poem
- briar n.
- A plant with a slender woody stem bearing stout prickles; especially, species of Rosa, Rubus, and Smilax. [OE. brere, brer, AS. brer, brær; cf. Ir. briar prickle, thorn, brier, pin, Gael. preas bush, brier, W. prys, prysg.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Far from love the Heavenly Father is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, Far from love the Heavenly Father, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/far-from-love-the-heavenly-father.html, id L19078.
Form and metre
Far from love the Heavenly Father is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 father · childA · briar · mildA
- 2 -AAA dragon · friendA · predestinedA · landA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Far from love the Heavenly Father | 9 | ····/˘˘/˘ |
| Leads the chosen child; | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Oftener through realm of briar | 8 | /˘˘···/˘ |
| Than the meadow mild, | 5 | ··/·· |
| Oftener by the claw of dragon | 9 | /˘˘····/˘ |
| Than the hand of friend, | 5 | ····· |
| Guides the little one predestined | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| To the native land. | 5 | ··/˘· |
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.