A Dead Boche
To you who'd read my songs of WarAnd only hear of blood and fame,I'll say (you've heard it said before)"War's Hell!" and if you doubt the same,Today I found in Mametz WoodA certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,In a great mess of things unclean,Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunkWith clothes and face a sodden green,Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
Words in this poem
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
- spectacled a.
- Furnished with spectacles; wearing spectacles.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Dead Boche is in the public domain. This text is taken from Fairies and Fusiliers, Project Gutenberg ebook #10122; 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 Graves, A Dead Boche, in Fairies and Fusiliers (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10122, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/graves-fairies/a-dead-boche.html, id L02427.
Form and metre
A Dead Boche is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABABCC warA · fameB · beforeA · sameB · woodC · bloodC
- 2 ABAB-- trunkA · uncleanB · stunkA · greenB · haired · beard
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To you who'd read my songs of War | 8 | ········ |
| And only hear of blood and fame, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I'll say (you've heard it said before) | 8 | ········ |
| "War's Hell!" and if you doubt the same, | 8 | ········ |
| Today I found in Mametz Wood | 8 | ˘/······ |
| A certain cure for lust of blood: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Where, propped against a shattered trunk, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In a great mess of things unclean, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk | 8 | ········ |
| With clothes and face a sodden green, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired, | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| Dribbling black blood from nose and beard. | 8 | /˘······ |
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.