O Wind of God
O wind of God, that blowest in the mind,Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me;Blow, swifter blow, a strong warm summer wind,Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see;Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree,And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove--High the imperfect soars, descends the perfect love!
Blow not the less though winter cometh then;Blow, wind of God, blow hither changes keen;Let the spring creep into the ground again,The flowers close all their eyes and not be seen:All lives in thee that ever once hath been!Blow, fill my upper air with icy storms;Breathe cold, O wind of God, and kill my cankerworms.
Words in this poem
- swifter v. t.
- To tighten, as slack standing rigging, by bringing the opposite shrouds nearer.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
O Wind of God 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, O Wind of God, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/o-wind-of-god.html, id L22491.
Form and metre
O Wind of God is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABABBCC mindA · meB · windA · seeB · treeB · doveC · loveC
- 2 ABAB-CC thenA · keenB · againA · seenB · been · stormsC · cankerwormsC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O wind of God, that blowest in the mind, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Blow, swifter blow, a strong warm summer wind, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see; | 10 | ···/······ |
| Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove-- | 10 | ·/·/˘····· |
| High the imperfect soars, descends the perfect love! | 12 | ··˘/˘·˘/·/·· |
| Blow not the less though winter cometh then; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Blow, wind of God, blow hither changes keen; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Let the spring creep into the ground again, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| The flowers close all their eyes and not be seen: | 10 | ·/········ |
| All lives in thee that ever once hath been! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Blow, fill my upper air with icy storms; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Breathe cold, O wind of God, and kill my cankerworms. | 12 | ············ |
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.