The Consoler: On an Engraving of Scheffer's Christus Consolator I
What human form is this? what form divine?And who are these that gaze upon his faceMild, beautiful, and full of heavenly grace,With whose reflected light the gazers shine?Saviour, who does not know it to be thine?Who does not long to fill a gazer's place?And yet there is no time, there is no spaceTo keep away thy servants from thy shrine!Here if we kneel, and watch with faithful eyes,Thou art not too far for faithful eyes to see,Thou art not too far to turn and look on me,To speak to me, and to receive my sighs.Therefore for ever I forget the skies,And find an everlasting Sun in thee.
Words in this poem
- saviour n.
- One who saves, preserves, or delivers from destruction or danger. [OE. saveour, OF. salveor, F. sauveur, fr. L. salvator to save. See Save, v.]
- kneel v. i.
- To bend the knee; to fall or rest on the knees; -- sometimes with down. [OE. knelen, cneolien; akin to D. knielen, Dan. knæle. See Knee.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Consoler: On an Engraving of Scheffer's Christus Consolator I 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, The Consoler: On an Engraving of Scheffer's Christus Consolator I, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/the-consoler-on-an-engraving-of-scheffer-s-christus-consolat.html, id L22524.
Form and metre
The Consoler: On an Engraving of Scheffer's Christus Consolator I is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 71% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABBAABBACDDCCD divineA · faceB · graceB · shineA · thineA · placeB · spaceB · shrineA · eyesC · seeD · meD · sighsC · skiesC · theeD
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What human form is this? what form divine? | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And who are these that gaze upon his face | 10 | ·········· |
| Mild, beautiful, and full of heavenly grace, | 10 | ·/˘···/˘˘· |
| With whose reflected light the gazers shine? | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Saviour, who does not know it to be thine? | 10 | /˘········ |
| Who does not long to fill a gazer's place? | 10 | ·········· |
| And yet there is no time, there is no space | 10 | ·········· |
| To keep away thy servants from thy shrine! | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Here if we kneel, and watch with faithful eyes, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Thou art not too far for faithful eyes to see, | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| Thou art not too far to turn and look on me, | 11 | ··········· |
| To speak to me, and to receive my sighs. | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Therefore for ever I forget the skies, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| And find an everlasting Sun in thee. | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
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.