St. Luke the Painter
Give honour unto Luke Evangelist;For he it was (the aged legends say)Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mistOf devious symbols: but soon having wistHow sky-breadth and field-silence and this dayAre symbols also in some deeper way,She looked through these to God and was God's priest.
And if, past noon, her toil began to irk,And she sought talismans, and turned in vainTo soulless self-reflections of man's skill,Yet now, in this the twilight, she might stillKneel in the latter grass to pray again,Ere the night cometh and she may not work.
Words in this poem
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- evangelist n.
- A bringer of the glad tidings of Church and his doctrines.
- devious a.
- Out of a straight line; winding; varying from directness; as, a devious path or way. [L. devius; de + via way. See Viaduct.]
- soulless a.
- Being without a soul, or without greatness or nobleness of mind; mean; spiritless.
- kneel v. i.
- To bend the knee; to fall or rest on the knees; -- sometimes with down. [OE. knelen, cneolien; akin to D. knielen, Dan. knæle. See Knee.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
St. Luke the Painter is in the public domain. This text is taken from The House of Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #3692; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St. Luke the Painter, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/st-luke-the-painter.html, id L20990.
Form and metre
St. Luke the Painter is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
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 ABBAABB- evangelistA · sayB · prayB · mistA · wistA · dayB · wayB · priest
- 2 ABCCBA irkA · vainB · skillC · stillC · againB · workA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Give honour unto Luke Evangelist; | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| For he it was (the aged legends say) | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray. | 10 | ·········· |
| Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist | 10 | /˘········ |
| Of devious symbols: but soon having wist | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Are symbols also in some deeper way, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| She looked through these to God and was God's priest. | 10 | ·········· |
| And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| And she sought talismans, and turned in vain | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| To soulless self-reflections of man's skill, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still | 10 | ·····/···· |
| Kneel in the latter grass to pray again, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Ere the night cometh and she may not work. | 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.