A Nameless Grave
"A soldier of the Union mustered out,"Is the inscription on an unknown graveAt Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scoutShot down in skirmish, or disastrous routOf battle, when the loud artillery draveIts iron wedges through the ranks of braveAnd doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.Thou unknown hero sleeping by the seaIn thy forgotten grave! with secret shameI feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,When I remember thou hast given for meAll that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name,And I can give thee nothing in return.
Words in this poem
- nameless a.
- Without a name; not having been given a name; as, a nameless star.
- dateless a.
- Without date; having no fixed time.
- disastrous a.
- Full of unpropitious stellar influences; unpropitious; ill-boding. [Cf. F. désastreux. See Disaster.]
- artillery n.
- Munitions of war; implements for warfare, as slings, bows, and arrows. [OE. artilrie, OF. artillerie, arteillerie, fr. LL. artillaria, artilleria, machines and apparatus of all kinds used in war, vans laden with arms of any kind whi]
- drave
- , old imp. of Drive.
- storming a.
- from Storm, v. Storming party (Mil.), a party assigned to the duty of making the first assault in storming a fortress.
- redoubt v. t.
- To stand in dread of; to regard with fear; to dread. [F. redouter, formerly also spelt redoubter; fr. L. pref. re- re- + dubitare to doubt, in LL., to fear. See Doubt.]
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Nameless Grave is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Nameless Grave, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/a-nameless-grave.html, id L17749.
Form and metre
A Nameless Grave is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECDE, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 57% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, 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 ABBAABBACDECDE outA · graveB · waveB · scoutA · routA · draveB · braveB · redoubtA · seaC · shameD · burnE · meC · nameD · returnE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "A soldier of the Union mustered out," | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Is the inscription on an unknown grave | 10 | ··˘/˘··˘/· |
| At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout | 9 | /˘·/˘/˘·· |
| Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Of battle, when the loud artillery drave | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave | 9 | ·//˘····· |
| And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt. | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea | 10 | ·˘//˘/˘··· |
| In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| When I remember thou hast given for me | 10 | ··˘/˘··/·· |
| All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And I can give thee nothing in return. | 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.