Lady, You Are My God
Lady, you are my God—Lady, you are my Heaven.
If I am your GodLabour for your Heaven.
Lady, you are my God,And shall not love win Heaven?
If love made me GodDeeds must win my Heaven.
If my love made you God,What more can I for Heaven?
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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lady, You Are My God is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Isaac Rosenberg, Project Gutenberg ebook #66889; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Isaac Rosenberg, Lady, You Are My God, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66889, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rosenberg-poems/lady-you-are-my-god.html, id L02518.
Form and metre
Lady, You Are My God is 10 lines in 5 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.1 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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.
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Lady, you are my God— | 6 | /˘···· |
| Lady, you are my Heaven. | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| If I am your God | 5 | ····· |
| Labour for your Heaven. | 6 | /···/˘ |
| Lady, you are my God, | 6 | /˘···· |
| And shall not love win Heaven? | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| If love made me God | 5 | ····· |
| Deeds must win my Heaven. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| If my love made you God, | 6 | ······ |
| What more can I for Heaven? | 7 | ·····/˘ |
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.