The Inner Voice
'MID the mad whirl of life, its dim confusion,Its jarring discords and poor vanity,Breathing like music over troubled waters,What gentle voice, O Christian, speaks to thee?
It is a stranger,--not of earth or earthly;By the serene, deep fulness of that eye,--By the calm, pitying smile, the gesture lowly,--It is thy Saviour as he passeth by.
"Come, come," he saith, "O soul oppressed and weary,Come to the shadows of my desert rest,Come walk with me far from life's babbling discords,And peace shall breathe like music in thy breast.
"Art thou bewildered by contesting voices,--Sick to thy soul of party noise and strife?Come, leave it all, and seek that solitudeWhere thou shalt learn of me a purer life.
"When far behind the world's great tumult dieth,Thou shalt look back and wonder at its roar;But its far voice shall seem to thee a dream,Its power to vex thy holier life be o'er.
"There shalt thou learn the secret of a power,Mine to bestow, which heals the ills of living;To overcome by love, to live by prayer,To conquer man's worst evils by forgiving."
Words in this poem
- jarring a.
- Shaking; disturbing; discordant. [See Jar.]
- pitying a.
- Expressing pity; as, a pitying eye, glance, or word.
- saviour n.
- One who saves, preserves, or delivers from destruction or danger. [OE. saveour, OF. salveor, F. sauveur, fr. L. salvator to save. See Save, v.]
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- 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,]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
- forgiving a.
- Disposed to forgive; inclined to overlook offenses; mild; merciful; compassionate; placable; as, a forgiving temper.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Inner Voice is in the public domain. This text is taken from Religious Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #44778; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Inner Voice, in Religious Poems (1867), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #44778, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stowe-religious-poems/the-inner-voice.html, id L22710.
Form and metre
The Inner Voice is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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.
- 2 -A-A earthly · eyeA · lowly · byA
- 3 -A-A weary · restA · discords · breastA
- 4 -A-A voices · strifeA · solitude · lifeA
- 6 -A-A power · livingA · prayer · forgivingA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 'MID the mad whirl of life, its dim confusion, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| Its jarring discords and poor vanity, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| Breathing like music over troubled waters, | 11 | /˘·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| What gentle voice, O Christian, speaks to thee? | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| It is a stranger,--not of earth or earthly; | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| By the serene, deep fulness of that eye,-- | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| By the calm, pitying smile, the gesture lowly,-- | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| It is thy Saviour as he passeth by. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| "Come, come," he saith, "O soul oppressed and weary, | 11 | ······˘/·/˘ |
| Come to the shadows of my desert rest, | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| Come walk with me far from life's babbling discords, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| And peace shall breathe like music in thy breast. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| "Art thou bewildered by contesting voices,-- | 11 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| Sick to thy soul of party noise and strife? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Come, leave it all, and seek that solitude | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Where thou shalt learn of me a purer life. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| "When far behind the world's great tumult dieth, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Thou shalt look back and wonder at its roar; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But its far voice shall seem to thee a dream, | 10 | ·········· |
| Its power to vex thy holier life be o'er. | 10 | ·/···/˘··· |
| "There shalt thou learn the secret of a power, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| Mine to bestow, which heals the ills of living; | 11 | ··˘/·····/˘ |
| To overcome by love, to live by prayer, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| To conquer man's worst evils by forgiving." | 11 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/˘ |
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.