Love's Prayer
Beloved, this the heart I offer theeIs purified from old idolatry,From outworn hopes, and from the lingering stainOf passion's dregs, by penitential pain.
Take thou it, then, and fill it up for meWith thine unstinted love, and it shall beAn earthy chalice that is made divineBy its red draught of sacramental wine.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- chalice n.
- A cup or bowl; especially, the cup used in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. [OR. chalis, calice, OF. chalice, calice, F. calice, fr. L. calix, akin to Gr. helmet. Cf. Calice, Calyx.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love's Prayer is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, Love's Prayer, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/loves-prayer.html, id L29434.
Form and metre
Love's Prayer is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 AABB theeA · idolatryA · stainB · painB
- 2 AABB meA · beA · divineB · wineB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Beloved, this the heart I offer thee | 10 | ˘/˘····/˘· |
| Is purified from old idolatry, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| From outworn hopes, and from the lingering stain | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of passion's dregs, by penitential pain. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Take thou it, then, and fill it up for me | 10 | ·········· |
| With thine unstinted love, and it shall be | 10 | ·········· |
| An earthy chalice that is made divine | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| By its red draught of sacramental wine. | 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.