167. Christ's Words on the Cross: My God, My God
Christ, when He hung the dreadful cross upon,Had, as it were, a derelictionIn this regard, in those great terrors HeHad no one beam from God's sweet majesty.
Words in this poem
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
- dereliction n.
- The act of leaving with an intention not to reclaim or resume; an utter forsaking abandonment. [L. derelictio.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
167. Christ's Words on the Cross: My God, My God is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #22421; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Herrick, 167. Christ's Words on the Cross: My God, My God, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/167-christ-s-words-on-the-cross-my-god-my-god.html, id L06178.
Form and metre
167. Christ's Words on the Cross: My God, My God is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AA-- uponA · derelictionA · he · majesty
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Christ, when He hung the dreadful cross upon, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Had, as it were, a dereliction | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| In this regard, in those great terrors He | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Had no one beam from God's sweet majesty. | 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.