De Profundis
When I am dead unto myself, and let,O Father, thee live on in me,Contented to do nought but pay my debt,And leave the house to thee,
Then shall I be thy ransomed--from the carkOf living, from the strain for breath,From tossing in my coffin strait and dark,At hourly strife with death!
Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake!A buried temple of the Lord!Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break!Stream out, O living Sword!
When I am with thee as thou art with me,Life will be self-forgetting power;Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free,Will flame in darkest hour.
Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm,With windows open to thy wind,Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalmSoaring from heart and mind?
The body of this death will melt away,And I shall know as I am known;Know thee my father, every hour and day,As thou know'st me thine own!
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- cark n.
- A noxious or corroding care; solicitude; worry. [OE. cark, fr. a dialectic form of F. charge; cf. W. carc anxiety, care, Arm karg charge, burden. See Charge, and cf. Cargo.]
- hourly a.
- Happening or done every hour; occurring hour by hour; frequent; often repeated; renewed hour by hour; continual.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
De Profundis 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, De Profundis, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/de-profundis.html, id L22309.
Form and metre
De Profundis is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 letA · meB · debtA · theeB
- 2 ABAB carkA · breathB · darkA · deathB
- 3 ABAB awakeA · lordB · breakA · swordB
- 4 ABAB meA · powerB · freeA · hourB
- 5 ABAB calmA · windB · psalmA · mindB
- 6 ABAB awayA · knownB · dayA · ownB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When I am dead unto myself, and let, | 10 | ·······/·· |
| O Father, thee live on in me, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Contented to do nought but pay my debt, | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| And leave the house to thee, | 6 | ······ |
| Then shall I be thy ransomed--from the cark | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of living, from the strain for breath, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| From tossing in my coffin strait and dark, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| At hourly strife with death! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake! | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| A buried temple of the Lord! | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break! | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Stream out, O living Sword! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| When I am with thee as thou art with me, | 10 | ·········· |
| Life will be self-forgetting power; | 9 | ····˘/˘/˘ |
| Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Will flame in darkest hour. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| With windows open to thy wind, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalm | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Soaring from heart and mind? | 6 | /˘···· |
| The body of this death will melt away, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And I shall know as I am known; | 8 | ········ |
| Know thee my father, every hour and day, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/·· |
| As thou know'st me thine own! | 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.