Thou Also
Cry out upon the crime, and then let slipThe dogs of hate, whose hanging muzzles trackThe bloody secret; let the welkin crackReverberating, while ye dance and skipAbout the horrid blaze! or else ye strip,More secretly, for the avenging rack,Him who hath done the deed, till, oozing blackYe watch the anguish from his nostrils drip,And all the knotted limbs lie quivering!Or, if your hearts disdain such banqueting,With wide and tearless eyes go staring throughThe murder cells! but think--that, if your kneesBow not to holiness, then even in youLie deeper gulfs and blacker crimes than these.
Words in this poem
- welkin n.
- The visible regions of the air; the vault of heaven; the sky. [OE. welken, welkene, welkne, wolcne, weolcne, AS. wolcen, pl. wolcnu, a cloud; akin to D. wolk, OFries. wolken, OS. wolkan, G. wolke, OHG. wolchan, and probably]
- horrid a.
- Rough; rugged; bristling. [L. horridus. See Horror, and cf. Ordure.]
- drip v. i.
- To fall in drops; as, water drips from the eaves. [Akin to LG. drippen, Dan. dryppe, from a noun. See Drop.]
- tearless a.
- Shedding no tears; free from tears; unfeeling.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Thou Also 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, Thou Also, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/thou-also.html, id L22471.
Form and metre
Thou Also is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See 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 ABBAABBA--CDCD slipA · trackB · crackB · skipA · stripA · rackB · blackB · dripA · quivering · banqueting · throughC · kneesD · youC · theseD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cry out upon the crime, and then let slip | 10 | ·········· |
| The dogs of hate, whose hanging muzzles track | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| The bloody secret; let the welkin crack | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Reverberating, while ye dance and skip | 10 | ˘/˘·˘····· |
| About the horrid blaze! or else ye strip, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| More secretly, for the avenging rack, | 10 | ·/˘˘··˘/˘· |
| Him who hath done the deed, till, oozing black | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Ye watch the anguish from his nostrils drip, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And all the knotted limbs lie quivering! | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| Or, if your hearts disdain such banqueting, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘˘ |
| With wide and tearless eyes go staring through | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The murder cells! but think--that, if your knees | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Bow not to holiness, then even in you | 10 | ···/˘˘·/·· |
| Lie deeper gulfs and blacker crimes than these. | 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.