Discipline
Throw away Thy rod,Throw away Thy wrath;O my God,Take the gentle path!
For my heart’s desireUnto Thine is bent:I aspireTo a full consent.
Not a word or lookI affect to own,But by book,And Thy Book alone.
Though I fail, I weep;Though I halt in pace,Yet I creepTo the throne of grace.
Then let wrath remove;Love will do the deed:For with loveStony hearts will bleed.
Love is swift of foot;Love’s a man of war,And can shoot,And can hit from far.
Who can ’scape his bow?That which wrought on Thee,Brought Thee low,Needs must work on me.
Throw away Thy rod;Though man frailties hath,Thou art God:Throw away Thy wrath!
Words in this poem
- aspire v. t.
- To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to.
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Discipline is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; 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 Herbert, Discipline, in Poems (1593–1632), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-george-herbert/discipline.html, id L16065.
Form and metre
Discipline is 32 lines in 8 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 6 of its 8 stanzas. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.5 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 16% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 rodA · wrathB · godA · pathB
- 2 -A-A desire · bentA · aspire · consentA
- 3 ABAB lookA · ownB · bookA · aloneB
- 4 ABAB weepA · paceB · creepA · graceB
- 5 ABAB removeA · deedB · loveA · bleedB
- 7 ABAB bowA · theeB · lowA · meB
- 8 ABAB rodA · hathB · godA · wrathB
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Throw away Thy rod, | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| Throw away Thy wrath; | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| O my God, | 3 | ··· |
| Take the gentle path! | 5 | ··/˘· |
| For my heart’s desire | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| Unto Thine is bent: | 5 | ····· |
| I aspire | 3 | ·˘/ |
| To a full consent. | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Not a word or look | 5 | ····· |
| I affect to own, | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| But by book, | 3 | ··· |
| And Thy Book alone. | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Though I fail, I weep; | 5 | ····· |
| Though I halt in pace, | 5 | ····· |
| Yet I creep | 3 | ··· |
| To the throne of grace. | 5 | ····· |
| Then let wrath remove; | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Love will do the deed: | 5 | ····· |
| For with love | 3 | ··· |
| Stony hearts will bleed. | 5 | /˘··· |
| Love is swift of foot; | 5 | ····· |
| Love’s a man of war, | 5 | ····· |
| And can shoot, | 3 | ··· |
| And can hit from far. | 5 | ····· |
| Who can ’scape his bow? | 5 | ····· |
| That which wrought on Thee, | 5 | ····· |
| Brought Thee low, | 3 | ··· |
| Needs must work on me. | 5 | ····· |
| Throw away Thy rod; | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| Though man frailties hath, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Thou art God: | 3 | ··· |
| Throw away Thy wrath! | 5 | ·˘/·· |
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.