In Bonds
Of the poor bird that cannot flyKindly you think and mournfully;For prisoners and for exiles allYou let the tears of pity fall;And very true the grief should beThat mourns the bondage of the free.
The soul--she has a fatherland;Binds her not many a tyrant's hand?And the winged spirit has a home,But can she always homeward come?Poor souls, with all their wounds and foes,Will you not also pity those?
Words in this poem
- fatherland n.
- One's native land; the native land of one's fathers or ancestors. [Imitated fr. D. vaderland. See Father, and Land.]
- homeward a.
- Being in the direction of home; as, the homeward way.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In Bonds 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, In Bonds, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/in-bonds.html, id L22413.
Form and metre
In Bonds is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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-BBAA flyA · mournfully · allB · fallB · beA · freeA
- 2 AABBCC fatherlandA · handA · homeB · comeB · foesC · thoseC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Of the poor bird that cannot fly | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Kindly you think and mournfully; | 8 | /˘······ |
| For prisoners and for exiles all | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| You let the tears of pity fall; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And very true the grief should be | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That mourns the bondage of the free. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The soul--she has a fatherland; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Binds her not many a tyrant's hand? | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| And the winged spirit has a home, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But can she always homeward come? | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| Poor souls, with all their wounds and foes, | 8 | ········ |
| Will you not also pity those? | 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.