Sermon
Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,For as his work thou giv'st the man.From us, not thee, come all our wrongs;Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs:With small-cord whips and scorpion thongsThou lay'st on every ill thy ban.Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,For as his work thou giv'st the man.
About this text
Sermon 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, Sermon, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/sermon-2.html, id L22502.
Form and metre
Sermon is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAAABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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 ABAAABAB belongsA · manB · wrongsA · belongsA · thongsA · banB · belongsA · manB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| For as his work thou giv'st the man. | 8 | ········ |
| From us, not thee, come all our wrongs; | 8 | ······/· |
| Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs: | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| With small-cord whips and scorpion thongs | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thou lay'st on every ill thy ban. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| For as his work thou giv'st the man. | 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.