Theology
There is a heaven, for ever, day by day,The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so.There is a hell, I 'm quite as sure; for pray,If there were not, where would my neighbours go?
About this text
Theology 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, Theology, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/theology.html, id L00622.
Form and metre
Theology is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 10.5 syllables.
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 dayA · soB · prayA · goB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There is a heaven, for ever, day by day, | 9 | ···/·/··· |
| The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so. | 12 | ·/˘/˘······· |
| There is a hell, I 'm quite as sure; for pray, | 11 | ··········· |
| If there were not, where would my neighbours go? | 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.