Song Made Flesh
I have no glory in these songs of mine:If one of them can make a brother strong,It came down from the peaks of the divine--I heard it in the Heaven of Lyric Song.
The one who builds the poem into fact,He is the rightful owner of it all:The pale words are with God’s own power packedWhen brave souls answer to their buglecall.
And so I ask no man to praise my song,But I would have him build it in his soul;For that great praise would make me glad and strong,And build the poem to a perfect whole.
Words in this poem
- rightful a.
- Righteous; upright; just; good; -- said of persons.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song Made Flesh is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, Song Made Flesh, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/song-made-flesh.html, id L24795.
Form and metre
Song Made Flesh is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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 ABAB mineA · strongB · divineA · songB
- 2 ABAB factA · allB · packedA · buglecallB
- 3 ABAB songA · soulB · strongA · wholeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I have no glory in these songs of mine: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| If one of them can make a brother strong, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| It came down from the peaks of the divine-- | 10 | ········˘/ |
| I heard it in the Heaven of Lyric Song. | 10 | ·····/·/˘· |
| The one who builds the poem into fact, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| He is the rightful owner of it all: | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The pale words are with God’s own power packed | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| When brave souls answer to their buglecall. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And so I ask no man to praise my song, | 10 | ·········· |
| But I would have him build it in his soul; | 10 | ·········· |
| For that great praise would make me glad and strong, | 10 | ·········· |
| And build the poem to a perfect whole. | 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.