God's Vengeance
Saith the Lord, "Vengeance is mine;I will repay," saith the Lord;Ours be the anger divine,Lit by the flash of His word.
How shall His vengeance be done?How, when His purpose is clear?Must He come down from His throne?Hath He no instruments here?
Sleep not in imbecile trust,Waiting for God to begin,While, growing strong in the dust,Rests the bruised serpent of sin.
Right and Wrong,--both cannot liveDeath-grappled. Which shall we see?Strike! only Justice can giveSafety to all that shall be.
Shame! to stand paltering thus,Tricked by the balancing odds;Strike! God is waiting for us!Strike! for the vengeance is God's.
Words in this poem
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- 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,]
- odds n.
- Difference in favor of one and against another; excess of one of two things or numbers over the other; inequality; advantage; superiority; hence, excess of chances; probability. [See Odd, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
God's Vengeance is in the public domain. This text is taken from Pike County Ballads and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #6062; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Hay, God's Vengeance, in Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6062, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hay-pike-county/god-s-vengeance.html, id L21628.
Form and metre
God's Vengeance is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 A-A- mineA · lord · divineA · word
- 2 -A-A done · clearA · throne · hereA
- 3 ABAB trustA · beginB · dustA · sinB
- 4 ABAB liveA · seeB · giveA · beB
- 5 ABAB thusA · oddsB · usA · god'sB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Saith the Lord, "Vengeance is mine; | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| I will repay," saith the Lord; | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| Ours be the anger divine, | 8 | /˘··/˘˘/ |
| Lit by the flash of His word. | 7 | ······· |
| How shall His vengeance be done? | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| How, when His purpose is clear? | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Must He come down from His throne? | 7 | ······· |
| Hath He no instruments here? | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Sleep not in imbecile trust, | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Waiting for God to begin, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| While, growing strong in the dust, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Rests the bruised serpent of sin. | 8 | ···˘/˘·· |
| Right and Wrong,--both cannot live | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Death-grappled. Which shall we see? | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Strike! only Justice can give | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| Safety to all that shall be. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Shame! to stand paltering thus, | 7 | ······· |
| Tricked by the balancing odds; | 8 | ·˘··/˘˘· |
| Strike! God is waiting for us! | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Strike! for the vengeance is God's. | 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.