A Prayer
O Lord, the hard-won milesHave worn my stumbling feet:Oh, soothe me with thy smiles,And make my life complete.
The thorns were thick and keenWhere'er I trembling trod;The way was long betweenMy wounded feet and God.
Where healing waters flowDo thou my footsteps lead.My heart is aching so;Thy gracious balm I need.
Words in this poem
- soothe v. t.
- To assent to as true. Testament of Love. [Originally, to assent to as true; OE. so to verify, AS. ges to prove the truth of, to bear witness. See Sooth, a.]
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Prayer is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, A Prayer, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/a-prayer.html, id L00491.
Form and metre
A Prayer is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.2 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 ABAB milesA · feetB · smilesA · completeB
- 2 ABAB keenA · trodB · betweenA · godB
- 3 ABAB flowA · leadB · soA · needB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O Lord, the hard-won miles | 6 | ······ |
| Have worn my stumbling feet: | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Oh, soothe me with thy smiles, | 6 | ······ |
| And make my life complete. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The thorns were thick and keen | 6 | ······ |
| Where'er I trembling trod; | 8 | ˘˘/·/˘˘· |
| The way was long between | 6 | ······ |
| My wounded feet and God. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Where healing waters flow | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Do thou my footsteps lead. | 6 | ···/·· |
| My heart is aching so; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Thy gracious balm I need. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.