Love Is Strength
Love alone is great in might,Makes the heavy burden light,Smooths rough ways to weary feet,Makes the bitter morsel sweet:Love alone is strength!
Might that is not born of LoveIs not Might born from above,Has its birthplace down belowWhere they neither reap nor sow:Love alone is strength!
Love is stronger than all force,Is its own eternal source;Might is always in decay,Love grows fresher every day:Love alone is strength!
Little ones, no ill can chance;Fear ye not, but sing and dance;Though the high-heaved heaven should fallGod is plenty for us all:God is Love and Strength!
Words in this poem
- birthplace n.
- The town, city, or country, where a person is born; place of origin or birth, in its more general sense.
- reap n.
- A bundle of grain; a handful of grain laid down by the reaper as it is cut. Wright. [Cf. AS. rip harvest. See Reap, v.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love Is Strength 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, Love Is Strength, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/love-is-strength.html, id L22304.
Form and metre
Love Is Strength is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 AABB- mightA · lightA · feetB · sweetB · strength
- 2 AABB- loveA · aboveA · belowB · sowB · strength
- 3 AABB- forceA · sourceA · decayB · dayB · strength
- 4 AABB- chanceA · danceA · fallB · allB · strength
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Love alone is great in might, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Makes the heavy burden light, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Smooths rough ways to weary feet, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Makes the bitter morsel sweet: | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Love alone is strength! | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| Might that is not born of Love | 7 | ······· |
| Is not Might born from above, | 7 | ······· |
| Has its birthplace down below | 7 | ··/···· |
| Where they neither reap nor sow: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Love alone is strength! | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| Love is stronger than all force, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Is its own eternal source; | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Might is always in decay, | 7 | ··/··˘/ |
| Love grows fresher every day: | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Love alone is strength! | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| Little ones, no ill can chance; | 7 | /˘····· |
| Fear ye not, but sing and dance; | 7 | ······· |
| Though the high-heaved heaven should fall | 7 | ····/·· |
| God is plenty for us all: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| God is Love and Strength! | 5 | ····· |
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.