Let the Dead Bury Their Dead
Where marshes venom-steeped the life-breeze taintAnd fitful meteors lap the watery wild,A moon sinks in the cloud-mire, dazed and faint,Its pearly flush defiled,Halo’d in sallow vapours like a saintThrough paths impure beguiled.
But worse the gloom within the castle wallsWhere moans the lord whom pestilence devours:The serfs awe-stricken flee his festering halls,The plague-star o’er him lowers,On his glazed eyes the fatal glimmer fallsWhile night weighs down his towers.
A crescent moon whose advent stays the pestEmbalms the dead with heavenly obsequies,But there are none to bear him to his rest,His body shroudless lies;Anointed not, by pious rites unblest,Unto the grave he cries.
A great half-moon now dominates the dome,With stern upbraidings yet not less benign:But the blank gazers to his final homeThe dead dare not consign,Lured on by sullen spectres of the gloamWho their own dead enshrine.
Again the drowsy marshes pillow nightAnd darkness severs sky and earth in two,But with a rush of cloud dispersing mightA full moon hurries through;The corpse is shrouded as in living light,The castle walls look new.
The heaven is one blue wave; it seems to breakWhile lucid spray with dreamlight floods the air:The coffins in the quickened graveyards quake,The bones know they are there,And ghostly shades their buried depths forsakeTo gather in the glare.
As dusk descends, by its scared rays illumed,A soul-procession dense and denser grows:Hearse after hearse night-horsed and sable-plumedA mirage heavenward throws:The newly dead is by the dead entombedAnd nature has repose.
Words in this poem
- fitful a.
- Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable. [From 7th Fit.]
- pest n.
- A fatal epidemic disease; a pestilence; specif., the plague. [L. pestis: cf. F. peste.]
- shroudless a.
- Without a shroud.
- unblest a.
- Not blest; excluded from benediction; hence, accursed; wretched. [Pref. un- not + blessed, blest.]
- consign v. i.
- To submit; to surrender or yield one's self.
- sullen a.
- Lonely; solitary; desolate. Wyclif (Job iii. 14). [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.]
- gloam v. i.
- To begin to grow dark; to grow dusky. [See Gloom, Glum.]
- enshrine v. t.
- To inclose in a shrine or chest; hence, to preserve or cherish as something sacred; as, to enshrine something in memory.
- hurries n.
- A staith or framework from which coal is discharged from cars into vessels.
- corpse n.
- A human body in general, whether living or dead; -- sometimes contemptuosly. [OF. cors (sometimes written corps), F. corps, L. corpus; akin to AS. hrif womb. See Midriff, and cf. Corse, Corselet, Corps, Cuerpo.]
- ghostly a.
- Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual; as, a ghostly confessor. [OE. gastlich, gostlich, AS. gastlic. See Ghost.]
- glare v. i.
- To shine with a bright, dazzling light. [OE. glaren, gloren; cf. AS. glær amber, LG. glaren to glow or burn like coals, D. gloren to glimmer; prob. akin to E. glass.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Let the Dead Bury Their Dead is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poems of Thomas Gordon Hake, Project Gutenberg ebook #78947; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Gordon Hake, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, in Poems (1870), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78947, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hake-poems/let-the-dead-bury-their-dead.html, id L23619.
Form and metre
Let the Dead Bury Their Dead is 42 lines in 7 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABAB, complete in 5 of its 7 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABABAB taintA · wildB · faintA · defiledB · saintA · beguiledB
- 2 ABA-AB wallsA · devoursB · hallsA · lowers · fallsA · towersB
- 3 ABABAB pestA · obsequiesB · restA · liesB · unblestA · criesB
- 4 ABABAB domeA · benignB · homeA · consignB · gloamA · enshrineB
- 5 ABABAB nightA · twoB · mightA · throughB · lightA · newB
- 6 ABABAB breakA · airB · quakeA · thereB · forsakeA · glareB
- 7 AB-BAB illumedA · growsB · plumed · throwsB · entombedA · reposeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Where marshes venom-steeped the life-breeze taint | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| And fitful meteors lap the watery wild, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| A moon sinks in the cloud-mire, dazed and faint, | 10 | ·········· |
| Its pearly flush defiled, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Halo’d in sallow vapours like a saint | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Through paths impure beguiled. | 6 | ··˘/˘/ |
| But worse the gloom within the castle walls | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Where moans the lord whom pestilence devours: | 11 | ·····/˘˘˘/˘ |
| The serfs awe-stricken flee his festering halls, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The plague-star o’er him lowers, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| On his glazed eyes the fatal glimmer falls | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| While night weighs down his towers. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| A crescent moon whose advent stays the pest | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| Embalms the dead with heavenly obsequies, | 11 | ˘/···/˘˘/˘˘ |
| But there are none to bear him to his rest, | 10 | ·········· |
| His body shroudless lies; | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Anointed not, by pious rites unblest, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| Unto the grave he cries. | 6 | ······ |
| A great half-moon now dominates the dome, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| With stern upbraidings yet not less benign: | 10 | ········˘/ |
| But the blank gazers to his final home | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The dead dare not consign, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Lured on by sullen spectres of the gloam | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Who their own dead enshrine. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Again the drowsy marshes pillow night | 10 | ˘/·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And darkness severs sky and earth in two, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| But with a rush of cloud dispersing might | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| A full moon hurries through; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The corpse is shrouded as in living light, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The castle walls look new. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The heaven is one blue wave; it seems to break | 10 | ·/········ |
| While lucid spray with dreamlight floods the air: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The coffins in the quickened graveyards quake, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/·· |
| The bones know they are there, | 6 | ······ |
| And ghostly shades their buried depths forsake | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| To gather in the glare. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| As dusk descends, by its scared rays illumed, | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| A soul-procession dense and denser grows: | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Hearse after hearse night-horsed and sable-plumed | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| A mirage heavenward throws: | 7 | ·˘//˘˘· |
| The newly dead is by the dead entombed | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And nature has repose. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
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