When All Is Done
When all is done, and my last word is said,And ye who loved me murmur, "He is dead,"Let no one weep, for fear that I should know,And sorrow too that ye should sorrow so.
When all is done and in the oozing clay,Ye lay this cast-off hull of mine away,Pray not for me, for, after long despair,The quiet of the grave will be a prayer.
For I have suffered loss and grievous pain,The hurts of hatred and the world's disdain,And wounds so deep that love, well-tried and pure,Had not the pow'r to ease them or to cure.
When all is done, say not my day is o'er,And that thro' night I seek a dimmer shore:Say rather that my morn has just begun,--I greet the dawn and not a setting sun,When all is done.
Words in this poem
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
When All Is Done is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, When All Is Done, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/when-all-is-done.html, id L00638.
Form and metre
When All Is Done is 17 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.6 syllables.
See 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 saidA · deadA · knowB · soB
- 2 AABB clayA · awayA · despairB · prayerB
- 3 AABB painA · disdainA · pureB · cureB
- 4 --AAA o'er · shore · begunA · sunA · doneA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When all is done, and my last word is said, | 10 | ·········· |
| And ye who loved me murmur, "He is dead," | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Let no one weep, for fear that I should know, | 10 | ·········· |
| And sorrow too that ye should sorrow so. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| When all is done and in the oozing clay, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Ye lay this cast-off hull of mine away, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Pray not for me, for, after long despair, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| The quiet of the grave will be a prayer. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| For I have suffered loss and grievous pain, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The hurts of hatred and the world's disdain, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And wounds so deep that love, well-tried and pure, | 10 | ·········· |
| Had not the pow'r to ease them or to cure. | 10 | ·········· |
| When all is done, say not my day is o'er, | 10 | ·········· |
| And that thro' night I seek a dimmer shore: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Say rather that my morn has just begun,-- | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| I greet the dawn and not a setting sun, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| When all is done. | 4 | ···· |
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.