Re-Edified
Lord of the tempest, pray refrainFrom leveling this church again.Now in its doom, as so you've willed it,We acquiesce. But you'll rebuild it.
Words in this poem
- rebuild v. t.
- To build again, as something which has been demolished; to construct anew; as, to rebuild a house, a wall, a wharf, or a city.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Re-Edified 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, Re-Edified, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/re-edified.html, id L28153.
Form and metre
Re-Edified is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABB refrainA · againA · itB · itB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Lord of the tempest, pray refrain | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| From leveling this church again. | 8 | ·/˘˘··˘/ |
| Now in its doom, as so you've willed it, | 10 | ········˘· |
| We acquiesce. But you'll rebuild it. | 9 | ··˘/··˘/· |
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.