Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson the Poet
No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,“No storied urn nor animated bust;”This simple stone directs pale Scotia’s way,To pour her sorrows o’er the Poet’s dust.
Words in this poem
- storied a.
- Told in a story. [From Story.]
- scotia n.
- A concave molding used especially in classical architecture. [L., fr. Gr. skoti`a darkness, a sunken molding in the base of a pillar, so called from the dark shadow it casts, from sko`tos darkness.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson the Poet is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, Project Gutenberg ebook #1279; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Burns, Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson the Poet, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/inscription-for-the-headstone-of-fergusson-the-poet.html, id L03069.
Form and metre
Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson the Poet is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 layA · bustB · wayA · dustB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| “No storied urn nor animated bust;” | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘· |
| This simple stone directs pale Scotia’s way, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| To pour her sorrows o’er the Poet’s dust. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.