A Prayer for Faith
There's not on earth a thing more vile and baseThan, lacking Thee, I feel myself to be:For pardon prays my own debility,Yearning in vain to lift me to Thy face.
Stretch to me, Lord, that chain whose links enlaceAll heavenly gifts and all felicity--Faith, whereunto I strive perpetually,Yet cannot find (my fault) her perfect grace.
That gift of gifts, the rarer 'tis, the moreI count it great; more great, because to earthWithout it neither peace nor joy is given.
If Thou Thy blood so lovingly didst pour,Let not that bounty fail or suffer dearth,Withholding Faith that opes the doors of heaven.
Words in this poem
- enlace v. t.
- To bind or encircle with lace, or as with lace; to lace; to encircle; to enfold; hence, to entangle.
- perpetually adv.
- In a perpetual manner; constantly; continually.
- lovingly adv.
- With love; affectionately.
- didst
- , the 2d pers. sing. imp. of Do.
- bounty n.
- Goodness, kindness; virtue; worth. [OE. bounte goodness, kindness, F. bonté, fr. L. bonitas, fr. bonus good, for older duonus; cf. Skr. duvas honor, respect.]
- dearth n.
- Scarcity which renders dear; want; lack; specifically, lack of food on account of failure of crops; famine. [OE. derthe, fr. dere. See Dear.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Prayer for Faith is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, the John Addington Symonds translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Michelangelo Buonarroti, A Prayer for Faith, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/a-prayer-for-faith.html, id L15209.
Form and metre
A Prayer for Faith is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.3 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 A--A baseA · be · debility · faceA
- 2 A--A enlaceA · felicity · perpetually · graceA
- 3 BC- moreB · earthC · given
- 4 BC- pourB · dearthC · heaven
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There's not on earth a thing more vile and base | 10 | ·········· |
| Than, lacking Thee, I feel myself to be: | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| For pardon prays my own debility, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| Yearning in vain to lift me to Thy face. | 10 | /˘········ |
| Stretch to me, Lord, that chain whose links enlace | 10 | ········˘/ |
| All heavenly gifts and all felicity-- | 11 | ·/˘˘···˘/˘˘ |
| Faith, whereunto I strive perpetually, | 11 | ······˘/˘˘˘ |
| Yet cannot find (my fault) her perfect grace. | 10 | ·˘/····˘/· |
| That gift of gifts, the rarer 'tis, the more | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I count it great; more great, because to earth | 10 | ·········· |
| Without it neither peace nor joy is given. | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| If Thou Thy blood so lovingly didst pour, | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| Let not that bounty fail or suffer dearth, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Withholding Faith that opes the doors of heaven. | 11 | ˘/˘······/˘ |
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.