Sermon
Lord, what is manThat thou art mindful of him!Though in creation's van,Lord, what is man!He wills less than he can,Lets his ideal scoff him!Lord, what is manThat thou art mindful of him!
Words in this poem
- mindful a.
- Bearing in mind; regardful; attentive; heedful; observant.
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.html, id L22497.
Form and metre
Sermon is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAAABAB. The metre is dactylic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in dactylic dimeter.
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 manA · himB · vanA · manA · canA · himB · manA · himB
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 dactylic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Lord, what is man | 4 | ···· |
| That thou art mindful of him! | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Though in creation's van, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Lord, what is man! | 4 | ···· |
| He wills less than he can, | 6 | ······ |
| Lets his ideal scoff him! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Lord, what is man | 4 | ···· |
| That thou art mindful of him! | 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.