The Moon’s Funeral II
And will she never rise again?The Holy Moon? Oh, never more!Perhaps along the inhuman shoreWhere pale ghosts areBeyond the low lethean fenShe and some wide infernal star....To us who loved her never more,The Moon will never rise again.Oh! never more in nightly skyHer eye so high shall peep and pryTo see the great world rolling by.For why?The Moon is dead. I saw her die.
Words in this poem
- lethean a.
- Of or pertaining to Lethe; resembling in effect the water of Lethe. Milton. Barrow.
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Moon’s Funeral II 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 II, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/the-moon-s-funeral-ii.html, id L21668.
Form and metre
The Moon’s Funeral II is 13 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBCACBADDDDD. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 ABBCACBADDDDD againA · moreB · shoreB · areC · fenA · starC · moreB · againA · skyD · pryD · byD · whyD · dieD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And will she never rise again? | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| The Holy Moon? Oh, never more! | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Perhaps along the inhuman shore | 9 | ˘/˘/·˘/˘· |
| Where pale ghosts are | 4 | ···· |
| Beyond the low lethean fen | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| She and some wide infernal star.... | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| To us who loved her never more, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The Moon will never rise again. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Oh! never more in nightly sky | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Her eye so high shall peep and pry | 8 | ········ |
| To see the great world rolling by. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| For why? | 2 | ·· |
| 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.