Judgment
I drew aside the Future's veilAnd saw upon his bierThe poet Whitman. Loud the wailAnd damp the falling tear.
"He's dead--he is no more!" one cried,With sobs of sorrow crammed;"No more? He's this much more," repliedAnother: "he is damned!"
Words in this poem
- bier n.
- A handbarrow or portable frame on which a corpse is placed or borne to the grave. [OE. bæe, beere, AS. b, b; akin to D. baar, OHG. bara, G. bahre, Icel barar, Dbaare, L. feretrum, Gr. , from the same bear to produce. See 1st Bear, and cf. Barr]
- damned a.
- Sentenced to punishment in a future state; condemned; consigned to perdition.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Judgment is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, Judgment, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/judgment.html, id L28143.
Form and metre
Judgment is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 veilA · bierB · wailA · tearB
- 2 ABAB criedA · crammedB · repliedA · damnedB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I drew aside the Future's veil | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And saw upon his bier | 6 | ······ |
| The poet Whitman. Loud the wail | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And damp the falling tear. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| "He's dead--he is no more!" one cried, | 8 | ········ |
| With sobs of sorrow crammed; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| "No more? He's this much more," replied | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Another: "he is damned!" | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
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.