Smoke
Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altarBut cannot get the wood to burn;It hardly flares ere it begins to falterAnd to the dark return.
Old sap, or night-fallen dew, makes damp the fuel;In vain my breath would flame provoke;Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewalTo thee ascends the smoke!
'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavour,Coldness and doubt and palsied lack:Such as I have I send thee!--perfect Giver,Send thou thy lightning back.
Words in this poem
- falter v. t.
- To thrash in the chaff; also, to cleanse or sift, as barley.
- endeavour v. t.
- To exert physical or intellectual strength for the attainment of; to use efforts to effect; to strive to achieve or reach; to try; to attempt. [OE. endevor; pref. en- + dever, devoir, duty, F. devoir: cf. F. se mettre en devoir de faire quelque chose to try to do a thing, to go about it. See Devoir, Deb]
- palsied a.
- Affected with palsy; paralyzed.
- giver n.
- One who gives; a donor; a bestower; a grantor; one who imparts or distributes.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Smoke 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, Smoke, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/smoke.html, id L22370.
Form and metre
Smoke is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 ABAB altarA · burnB · falterA · returnB
- 2 ABAB fuelA · provokeB · renewalA · smokeB
- 3 -A-A endeavour · lackA · giver · backA
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| But cannot get the wood to burn; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| It hardly flares ere it begins to falter | 11 | ·/˘···˘/·/˘ |
| And to the dark return. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Old sap, or night-fallen dew, makes damp the fuel; | 11 | ····/˘····/ |
| In vain my breath would flame provoke; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal | 11 | ···/˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| To thee ascends the smoke! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| 'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavour, | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| Coldness and doubt and palsied lack: | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Such as I have I send thee!--perfect Giver, | 11 | ·······/·/˘ |
| Send thou thy lightning back. | 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.