Shadows
All things are shadows of thee, Lord;The sun himself is but thy shade;My spirit is the shadow of thy word,A thing that thou hast said.
Diamonds are shadows of the sun,They gleam as after him they hark:My soul some arrows of thy light hath won.And feebly fights the dark!
All knowledges are broken shades,In gulfs of dark a scattered horde:Together rush the parted glory-grades--Then, lo, thy garment, Lord!
My soul, the shadow, still is lightBecause the shadow falls from thee;I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,And home flit shadowy.
Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still;The brighter I, the more thy shade!My motion be thy lovely moveless will!My darkness, light delayed!
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- horde n.
- A wandering troop or gang; especially, a clan or tribe of a nomadic people migrating from place to place for the sake of pasturage, plunder, etc.; a predatory multitude. Thomson. [F. horde (cf. G. horde), fr. Turk. ord, ordi, camp; of Tartar origin.]
- centre v. i.
- To be placed in a center; to be central.
- flit a.
- Nimble; quick; swift. See Fleet.
- moveless a.
- Motionless; fixed.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Shadows 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, Shadows, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/shadows.html, id L22498.
Form and metre
Shadows is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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.
- 2 ABAB sunA · harkB · wonA · darkB
- 3 ABAB shadesA · hordeB · gradesA · lordB
- 4 A-A- lightA · thee · brightA · shadowy
- 5 ABAB stillA · shadeB · willA · delayedB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All things are shadows of thee, Lord; | 8 | ···/···· |
| The sun himself is but thy shade; | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| My spirit is the shadow of thy word, | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| A thing that thou hast said. | 6 | ······ |
| Diamonds are shadows of the sun, | 8 | /˘·/···· |
| They gleam as after him they hark: | 8 | ········ |
| My soul some arrows of thy light hath won. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And feebly fights the dark! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| All knowledges are broken shades, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| In gulfs of dark a scattered horde: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Together rush the parted glory-grades-- | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Then, lo, thy garment, Lord! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| My soul, the shadow, still is light | 8 | ···/···· |
| Because the shadow falls from thee; | 8 | ···/···· |
| I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And home flit shadowy. | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still; | 8 | ·····/·· |
| The brighter I, the more thy shade! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My motion be thy lovely moveless will! | 11 | ·/˘··/˘···· |
| My darkness, light delayed! | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
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.