Bless God, he went as soldiers
Bless God, he went as soldiers,His musket on his breast;Grant, God, he charge the bravestOf all the martial blest.
Please God, might I behold himIn epauletted white,I should not fear the foe then,I should not fear the fight.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- epauletted a.
- Wearing epaulets; decorated with epaulets.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bless God, he went as soldiers is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, Bless God, he went as soldiers, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/bless-god-he-went-as-soldiers.html, id L19052.
Form and metre
Bless God, he went as soldiers is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 -AAA soldiers · breastA · bravestA · blestA
- 2 -A-A him · whiteA · then · fightA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Bless God, he went as soldiers, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| His musket on his breast; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Grant, God, he charge the bravest | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Of all the martial blest. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Please God, might I behold him | 7 | ····˘/· |
| In epauletted white, | 6 | ······ |
| I should not fear the foe then, | 7 | ······· |
| I should not fear the fight. | 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.