A Prayer in Sickness
Thou foldest me in sickness;Thou callest through the cloud;I batter with the thicknessOf the swathing, blinding shroud:Oh, let me see thy face,The only perfect graceThat thou canst show thy child.
father, being-giver,Take off the sickness-cloud;Saviour, my life deliverFrom this dull body-shroud:Till I can see thy faceI am not full of grace,I am not reconciled.
Words in this poem
- giver n.
- One who gives; a donor; a bestower; a grantor; one who imparts or distributes.
- saviour n.
- One who saves, preserves, or delivers from destruction or danger. [OE. saveour, OF. salveor, F. sauveur, fr. L. salvator to save. See Save, v.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Prayer in Sickness is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #9984; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George MacDonald, A Prayer in Sickness, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/a-prayer-in-sickness.html, id L22432.
Form and metre
A Prayer in Sickness is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABABCC- sicknessA · cloudB · thicknessA · shroudB · faceC · graceC · child
- 2 ABABCC- giverA · cloudB · deliverA · shroudB · faceC · graceC · reconciled
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou foldest me in sickness; | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Thou callest through the cloud; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| I batter with the thickness | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Of the swathing, blinding shroud: | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Oh, let me see thy face, | 6 | ······ |
| The only perfect grace | 6 | ·/˘/·· |
| That thou canst show thy child. | 6 | ······ |
| father, being-giver, | 6 | /˘/˘/˘ |
| Take off the sickness-cloud; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Saviour, my life deliver | 7 | /˘··˘/˘ |
| From this dull body-shroud: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Till I can see thy face | 6 | ······ |
| I am not full of grace, | 6 | ······ |
| I am not reconciled. | 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.