Righteous Wrath
There are many kinds of anger, as many kinds of fire;And some are fierce and fatal with murderous desire;And some are mean and craven, revengeful, sullen, slow,They hurt the man that holds them more than they hurt his foe.
And yet there is an anger that purifies the heart:The anger of the better against the baser part,Against the false and wicked, against the tyrant's sword,Against the enemies of love, and all that hate the Lord.
O cleansing indignation, O flame of righteous wrath,Give me a soul to feel thee and follow in thy path!Save me from selfish virtue, arm me for fearless fight,And give me strength to carry on, a soldier of the Right!
Words in this poem
- craven v. t.
- To make recreant, weak, spiritless, or cowardly.
- sullen a.
- Lonely; solitary; desolate. Wyclif (Job iii. 14). [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Righteous Wrath is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, Righteous Wrath, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/righteous-wrath.html, id L22943.
Form and metre
Righteous Wrath is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is alexandrines, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
See other poems in alexandrines.
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 AABB fireA · desireA · slowB · foeB
- 2 AABB heartA · partA · swordB · lordB
- 3 AABB wrathA · pathA · fightB · rightB
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 alexandrines. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There are many kinds of anger, as many kinds of fire; | 14 | ··/··/˘·/˘··/˘ |
| And some are fierce and fatal with murderous desire; | 14 | ·····/˘·/˘˘˘/˘ |
| And some are mean and craven, revengeful, sullen, slow, | 13 | ·····/˘˘/˘/˘· |
| They hurt the man that holds them more than they hurt his foe. | 13 | ············· |
| And yet there is an anger that purifies the heart: | 13 | ·····/˘·/˘··· |
| The anger of the better against the baser part, | 13 | ·/˘··/˘···/˘· |
| Against the false and wicked, against the tyrant's sword, | 13 | ·····/˘···/˘· |
| Against the enemies of love, and all that hate the Lord. | 13 | ···/˘········ |
| O cleansing indignation, O flame of righteous wrath, | 13 | ·/˘·˘/˘···/˘· |
| Give me a soul to feel thee and follow in thy path! | 13 | ········/˘··· |
| Save me from selfish virtue, arm me for fearless fight, | 13 | ···/˘/˘···/˘· |
| And give me strength to carry on, a soldier of the Right! | 14 | ·····/˘··/˘··· |
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.