A Winter Prayer
Come through the gloom of clouded skies,The slow dim rain and fog athwart;Through east winds keen with wrong and liesCome and lift up my hopeless heart.
Come through the sickness and the pain,The sore unrest that tosses still;Through aching dark that hides the gainCome and arouse my fainting will.
Come through the prate of foolish words,The science with no God behind;Through all the pangs of untuned chordsSpeak wisdom to my shaken mind.
Through all the fears that spirits bowOf what hath been, or may befall,Come down and talk with me, for thouCanst tell me all about them all.
Hear, hear my sad lone heart entreat,Heart of all joy, below, above!Come near and let me kiss thy feet,And name the names of those I love!
Words in this poem
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- entreat v. t.
- To treat, or conduct toward; to deal with; to use. [OE. entreten to treat, request, OF. entraiter to treat of; pref. en- (L. in) + traitier to treat. See Treat.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Winter Prayer 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 Winter Prayer, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/a-winter-prayer.html, id L22499.
Form and metre
A Winter Prayer is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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- skiesA · athwart · liesA · heart
- 2 ABAB painA · stillB · gainA · willB
- 3 -A-A words · behindA · chords · mindA
- 4 ABAB bowA · befallB · thouA · allB
- 5 ABAB entreatA · aboveB · feetA · loveB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come through the gloom of clouded skies, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The slow dim rain and fog athwart; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Through east winds keen with wrong and lies | 8 | ········ |
| Come and lift up my hopeless heart. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Come through the sickness and the pain, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The sore unrest that tosses still; | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Through aching dark that hides the gain | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Come and arouse my fainting will. | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Come through the prate of foolish words, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The science with no God behind; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Through all the pangs of untuned chords | 8 | ········ |
| Speak wisdom to my shaken mind. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Through all the fears that spirits bow | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Of what hath been, or may befall, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Come down and talk with me, for thou | 8 | ········ |
| Canst tell me all about them all. | 8 | ········ |
| Hear, hear my sad lone heart entreat, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Heart of all joy, below, above! | 8 | ········ |
| Come near and let me kiss thy feet, | 8 | ········ |
| And name the names of those I love! | 8 | ········ |
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.