Sermon
In his arms thy silly lamb,Lo, he gathers to his breast!See, thou sadly bleating dam,See him lift thy silly lamb!Hear it cry, "How blest I am!Here is love, and love is rest!"In his arms thy silly lambSee him gather to his breast!
Words in this poem
- sadly adv.
- Wearily; heavily; firmly.
- bleating a.
- Crying as a sheep does.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
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-3.html, id L22511.
Form and metre
Sermon is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAAABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See 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 ABAAABAB lambA · breastB · damA · lambA · amA · restB · lambA · breastB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In his arms thy silly lamb, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Lo, he gathers to his breast! | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| See, thou sadly bleating dam, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| See him lift thy silly lamb! | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Hear it cry, "How blest I am! | 7 | ······· |
| Here is love, and love is rest!" | 7 | ······· |
| In his arms thy silly lamb | 7 | ····/˘· |
| See him gather to his breast! | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.