Punishment
Mourner, that dost deserve thy mournfulness,Call thyself punished, call the earth thy hell;Say, "God is angry, and I earned it well--I would not have him smile on wickedness:"
Say this, and straightway all thy grief grows less:--"God rules at least, I find as prophets tell,And proves it in this prison!"--then thy cellSmiles with an unsuspected loveliness.
--"A prison--and yet from door and window-barI catch a thousand breaths of his sweet air!Even to me his days and nights are fair!He shows me many a flower and many a star!And though I mourn and he is very far,He does not kill the hope that reaches there!"
Words in this poem
- mourner n.
- One who mourns or is grieved at any misfortune, as the death of a friend.
- angry a.
- Troublesome; vexatious; rigorous. [See Anger.]
- straightway adv.
- Immediately; without loss of time; without delay.
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Punishment 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, Punishment, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/punishment.html, id L22406.
Form and metre
Punishment is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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 ABBA mournfulnessA · hellB · wellB · wickednessA
- 2 ABBA lessA · tellB · cellB · lovelinessA
- 3 ABBAAB barA · airB · fairB · starA · farA · thereB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mourner, that dost deserve thy mournfulness, | 10 | /˘··˘/···· |
| Call thyself punished, call the earth thy hell; | 10 | ·˘//˘····· |
| Say, "God is angry, and I earned it well-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I would not have him smile on wickedness:" | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Say this, and straightway all thy grief grows less:-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| "God rules at least, I find as prophets tell, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And proves it in this prison!"--then thy cell | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Smiles with an unsuspected loveliness. | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘˘ |
| --"A prison--and yet from door and window-bar | 11 | ·/˘·····/˘· |
| I catch a thousand breaths of his sweet air! | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Even to me his days and nights are fair! | 10 | /˘········ |
| He shows me many a flower and many a star! | 10 | ···/·/·/·· |
| And though I mourn and he is very far, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| He does not kill the hope that reaches there!" | 10 | ·······/˘· |
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.