Come unto Me
Oh, for the time gone by, when thought of ChristMade His Yoke easy and His Burden light;When my heart stirred within me at the sightOf Altar spread for awful Eucharist;When all my hopes His promises sufficed,When my Soul watched for Him by day, by night,When my lamp lightened and my robe was white,And all seemed loss, except the Pearl unpriced.Yet, since He calls me still with tender Call,Since He remembers Whom I half forgot,I even will run my race and bear my lot:For Faith the walls of Jericho cast down,And Hope to whoso runs holds forth a Crown,And Love is Christ, and Christ is All in all.
Words in this poem
- eucharist n.
- The act of giving thanks; thanksgiving. [L. euchaistia, Gr. yearn: cf. F. euchaistie.]
- unpriced a.
- Not priced; being without a fixed or certain value; also, priceless.
- whoso pron.
- Whosoever. Piers Plowman.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Come unto Me is in the public domain. This text is taken from Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #16950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Christina Rossetti, Come unto Me, in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-goblin-market/come-unto-me.html, id L04359.
Form and metre
Come unto Me is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 71% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAABBACDDEEC christA · lightB · sightB · eucharistA · sufficedA · nightB · whiteB · unpricedA · callC · forgotD · lotD · downE · crownE · allC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, for the time gone by, when thought of Christ | 10 | ·········· |
| Made His Yoke easy and His Burden light; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| When my heart stirred within me at the sight | 10 | ·········· |
| Of Altar spread for awful Eucharist; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| When all my hopes His promises sufficed, | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| When my Soul watched for Him by day, by night, | 10 | ·········· |
| When my lamp lightened and my robe was white, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And all seemed loss, except the Pearl unpriced. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Yet, since He calls me still with tender Call, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Since He remembers Whom I half forgot, | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| I even will run my race and bear my lot: | 10 | ·/········ |
| For Faith the walls of Jericho cast down, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And Hope to whoso runs holds forth a Crown, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And Love is Christ, and Christ is All in all. | 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.