The Flight into Egypt
Thou wayfaring Jesus, a pilgrim and stranger,Exiled from heaven by love at thy birth,Exiled again from thy rest in the manger,A fugitive child 'mid the perils of earth,--Cheer with thy fellowship all who are weary,Wandering far from the land that they love;Guide every heart that is homeless and dreary,Safe to its home in thy presence above.
Words in this poem
- wayfaring a.
- Traveling; passing; being on a journey.
- manger n.
- A trough or open box in which fodder is placed for horses or cattle to eat. [F. mangeoire, fr. manger to eat, fr. L. manducare, fr. mandere to chew. Cf. Mandible, Manducate.]
- homeless a.
- Destitute of a home. [AS.hamleas.]
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Flight into Egypt 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, The Flight into Egypt, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/the-flight-into-egypt.html, id L22846.
Form and metre
The Flight into Egypt is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCD. The metre is dactylic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other poems in dactylic tetrameter.
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 ABABCDCD strangerA · birthB · mangerA · earthB · wearyC · loveD · drearyC · aboveD
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 dactylic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thou wayfaring Jesus, a pilgrim and stranger, | 11 | ·/˘/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Exiled from heaven by love at thy birth, | 10 | /··/˘····· |
| Exiled again from thy rest in the manger, | 11 | /·˘/·····/˘ |
| A fugitive child 'mid the perils of earth,-- | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| Cheer with thy fellowship all who are weary, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Wandering far from the land that they love; | 10 | /˘˘······· |
| Guide every heart that is homeless and dreary, | 11 | ·/˘···/˘·/˘ |
| Safe to its home in thy presence above. | 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.