He Prayeth Best
These two stanzas, the very heart of that great poem, “The AncientMariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), sum up the lesson ofthis masterpiece--“Insensibility is a crime.”
Farewell, farewell! but this I tellTo thee, thou Wedding-Guest!He prayeth well who loveth wellBoth man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth bestAll things, both great and small:For the dear God who loveth us,He made and loveth all.
Words in this poem
- masterpiece n.
- Anything done or made with extraordinary skill; a capital performance; a chef-d'oeuvre; a supreme achievement.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Prayeth Best is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, He Prayeth Best, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/he-prayeth-best.html, id L25156.
Form and metre
He Prayeth Best is 11 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%).
See other poems in common measure.
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.
- 2 A-A- tellA · guest · wellA · beast
- 3 -A-A best · smallA · us · allA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| These two stanzas, the very heart of that great poem, “The Ancient | 15 | ··/˘·/˘····/·/˘ |
| Mariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), sum up the lesson of | 15 | /˘·/˘/˘/˘···/˘· |
| this masterpiece--“Insensibility is a crime.” | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Farewell, farewell! but this I tell | 8 | ·/·/···· |
| To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| He prayeth well who loveth well | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Both man and bird and beast. | 6 | ······ |
| He prayeth best who loveth best | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| All things, both great and small: | 6 | ······ |
| For the dear God who loveth us, | 8 | ········ |
| He made and loveth all. | 6 | ······ |
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.