A Burden of Easter Vigil
Awhile meet Doubt and Faith:For either sigheth and saith,That He is deadTo-day: the linen cloths cover His head,That hath, at last, whereon to rest; a rocky bed.
Come! for the pangs are done,That overcast the sun,So bright to-day!And moved the Roman soldier: come away!Hath sorrow more to weep? Hath pity more to say?
Why wilt thou linger yet?Think on dark Olivet;On Calvary stem:Think, from the happy birth at Bethlehem,To this last woe and passion at Jerusalem!
This only can be said:He loved us all; is dead;May rise again.But if He rise not? Over the far main,The sun of glory falls indeed: the stars are plain.
Words in this poem
- awhile adv.
- For a while; for some time; for a short time. [Adj. a + while time, interval.]
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- whereon adv.
- On which; -- used relatively; as, the earth whereon we live.
- overcast v. t.
- To cast or cover over; hence, to cloud; to darken.
- calvary n.
- The place where Christ was crucified, on a small hill outside of Jerusalem. Luke xxiii. 33. [L. calvaria a bare skull, fr. calva the scalp without hair. fr. calvus bald; cf. F. calvaire.]
- bethlehem n.
- A hospital for lunatics; -- corrupted into bedlam. [Heb. b house of food; b house + lekhem food, lakham to eat. Formerly the name of a hospital for the insane, in London, which had been the priory of St. Mary of ]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Burden of Easter Vigil is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #66520; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lionel Johnson, A Burden of Easter Vigil, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66520, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-lionel-poems/a-burden-of-easter-vigil.html, id L12469.
Form and metre
A Burden of Easter Vigil is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABBB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 5% 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 AABBB faithA · saithA · deadB · headB · bedB
- 2 AABBB doneA · sunA · dayB · awayB · sayB
- 3 --AAA yet · olivet · stemA · bethlehemA · jerusalemA
- 4 AABBB saidA · deadA · againB · mainB · plainB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Awhile meet Doubt and Faith: | 6 | ˘/···· |
| For either sigheth and saith, | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| That He is dead | 4 | ···· |
| To-day: the linen cloths cover His head, | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| That hath, at last, whereon to rest; a rocky bed. | 12 | ····˘/···/˘· |
| Come! for the pangs are done, | 6 | ······ |
| That overcast the sun, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| So bright to-day! | 4 | ···· |
| And moved the Roman soldier: come away! | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Hath sorrow more to weep? Hath pity more to say? | 12 | ·/˘····/˘··· |
| Why wilt thou linger yet? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Think on dark Olivet; | 6 | ······ |
| On Calvary stem: | 5 | ·/˘˘· |
| Think, from the happy birth at Bethlehem, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| To this last woe and passion at Jerusalem! | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| This only can be said: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| He loved us all; is dead; | 7 | ··˘···· |
| May rise again. | 4 | ··˘/ |
| But if He rise not? Over the far main, | 9 | ········· |
| The sun of glory falls indeed: the stars are plain. | 12 | ···/˘·˘/···· |
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.