A Burying
I see the twelve fair months go byBearing a coffin shoulder-high.What, laughing? Pretty pall-bearers,Pitiless of the buried years,Have ye never a tear to shedNor sigh to drop for the newly-dead,Nor marble grief to mark his grave?--No, none of these; but see, we haveGreen seed to mingle with his earth.--What, is not this a burying?---- Nay, a birth.
About this text
A Burying is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #56244; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eleanor Farjeon, A Burying, in Sonnets and Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56244, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/farjeon-sonnets-poems/a-burying.html, id L21966.
Form and metre
A Burying is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AA--BBCCDD byA · highA · bearers · years · shedB · deadB · graveC · haveC · earthD · birthD
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I see the twelve fair months go by | 8 | ········ |
| Bearing a coffin shoulder-high. | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘· |
| What, laughing? Pretty pall-bearers, | 8 | ·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Pitiless of the buried years, | 8 | /˘˘··/˘· |
| Have ye never a tear to shed | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Nor sigh to drop for the newly-dead, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Nor marble grief to mark his grave?-- | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| No, none of these; but see, we have | 8 | ········ |
| Green seed to mingle with his earth.-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| What, is not this a burying?---- Nay, a birth. | 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.