Suspiria
Take them, O Death! and bear awayWhatever thou canst call thine own!Thine image, stamped upon this clay,Doth give thee that, but that alone!
Take them, O Grave! and let them lieFolded upon thy narrow shelves,As garments by the soul laid by,And precious only to ourselves!
Take them, O great Eternity!Our little life is but a gustThat bends the branches of thy tree,And trails its blossoms in the dust!
About this text
Suspiria 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, Suspiria, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/suspiria.html, id L17576.
Form and metre
Suspiria is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 ABAB awayA · ownB · clayA · aloneB
- 2 ABAB lieA · shelvesB · byA · ourselvesB
- 3 -A-A eternity · gustA · tree · dustA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Take them, O Death! and bear away | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Whatever thou canst call thine own! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Thine image, stamped upon this clay, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Doth give thee that, but that alone! | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Take them, O Grave! and let them lie | 8 | ········ |
| Folded upon thy narrow shelves, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| As garments by the soul laid by, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And precious only to ourselves! | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Take them, O great Eternity! | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| Our little life is but a gust | 8 | //˘····· |
| That bends the branches of thy tree, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And trails its blossoms in the dust! | 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.