The Moon’s Funeral I
The Moon is dead. I saw her die.She in a drifting cloud was drest,She lay along the uncertain west,A dream to see.And very low she spake to me:“I go where none may understand,I fade into the nameless land,And there must lie perpetually.”And therefore I,And therefore loudly, loudly IAnd highAnd very piteously make cry:“The Moon is dead. I saw her die.”
Words in this poem
- nameless a.
- Without a name; not having been given a name; as, a nameless star.
- perpetually adv.
- In a perpetual manner; constantly; continually.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Moon’s Funeral I is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, The Moon’s Funeral I, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/the-moon-s-funeral-i.html, id L21667.
Form and metre
The Moon’s Funeral I is 13 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 77% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 ABBCCDD-AAAAA dieA · drestB · westB · seeC · meC · understandD · landD · perpetually · iA · iA · highA · cryA · dieA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The Moon is dead. I saw her die. | 8 | ········ |
| She in a drifting cloud was drest, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| She lay along the uncertain west, | 9 | ··˘/·˘/˘· |
| A dream to see. | 4 | ···· |
| And very low she spake to me: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| “I go where none may understand, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| I fade into the nameless land, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And there must lie perpetually.” | 9 | ····˘/˘˘˘ |
| And therefore I, | 4 | ···· |
| And therefore loudly, loudly I | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And high | 2 | ·· |
| And very piteously make cry: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| “The Moon is dead. I saw her die.” | 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.