Lines from a Letter to a Young Clerical Friend
A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire,A faith which doubt can never dim,A heart of love, a lip of fire,O Freedom's God! be Thou to him!
Speak through him words of power and fear,As through Thy prophet bards of old,And let a scornful people hearOnce more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled.
For lying lips Thy blessing seek,And hands of blood are raised to Thee,And On Thy children, crushed and weak,The oppressor plants his kneeling knee.
Let then, O God! Thy servant dareThy truth in all its power to tell,Unmask the priestly thieves, and tearThe Bible from the grasp of hell!
From hollow rite and narrow spanOf law and sect by Thee released,Oh, teach him that the Christian manIs holier than the Jewish priest.
Chase back the shadows, gray and old,Of the dead ages, from his way,And let his hopeful eyes beholdThe dawn of Thy millennial day;
That day when fettered limb and mindShall know the truth which maketh free,And he alone who loves his kindShall, childlike, claim the love of Thee!
Words in this poem
- oppressor n.
- One who oppresses; one who imposes unjust burdens on others; one who harasses others with unjust laws or unreasonable severity. [L.]
- unmask v. t.
- To strip of a mask or disguise; to lay open; to expose. [1st pref. un- + mask.]
- hopeful a.
- Full of hope, or agreeable expectation; inclined to hope; expectant.
- millennial a.
- Of or pertaining to the millennium, or to a thousand years; as, a millennial period; millennial happiness.
- fettered a.
- Seeming as if fettered, as the feet pf certain animals which bend backward, and appear unfit for walking.
- 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,]
- childlike a.
- Resembling a child, or that which belongs to children; becoming a child; meek; submissive; dutiful.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lines from a Letter to a Young Clerical Friend is in the public domain. This text is taken from Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Project Gutenberg ebook #9580; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Greenleaf Whittier, Lines from a Letter to a Young Clerical Friend, in Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform (1865), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9580, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whittier-anti-slavery/lines-from-a-letter-to-a-young-clerical-friend.html, id L24873.
Form and metre
Lines from a Letter to a Young Clerical Friend is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in iambic 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 ABAB tireA · dimB · fireA · himB
- 2 ABAB fearA · oldB · hearA · rolledB
- 3 ABAB seekA · theeB · weakA · kneeB
- 4 ABAB dareA · tellB · tearA · hellB
- 5 ABAB spanA · releasedB · manA · priestB
- 6 ABAB oldA · wayB · beholdA · dayB
- 7 ABAB mindA · freeB · kindA · theeB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| A faith which doubt can never dim, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A heart of love, a lip of fire, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| O Freedom's God! be Thou to him! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Speak through him words of power and fear, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| As through Thy prophet bards of old, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And let a scornful people hear | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Once more Thy Sinai-thunders rolled. | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| For lying lips Thy blessing seek, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And hands of blood are raised to Thee, | 8 | ········ |
| And On Thy children, crushed and weak, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The oppressor plants his kneeling knee. | 9 | ·˘/˘··/˘· |
| Let then, O God! Thy servant dare | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thy truth in all its power to tell, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Unmask the priestly thieves, and tear | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| The Bible from the grasp of hell! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| From hollow rite and narrow span | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Of law and sect by Thee released, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Oh, teach him that the Christian man | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Is holier than the Jewish priest. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Chase back the shadows, gray and old, | 8 | ···/···· |
| Of the dead ages, from his way, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And let his hopeful eyes behold | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| The dawn of Thy millennial day; | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| That day when fettered limb and mind | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Shall know the truth which maketh free, | 8 | ········ |
| And he alone who loves his kind | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Shall, childlike, claim the love of Thee! | 8 | ·/······ |
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.