The Dead
How they so softly rest,All they the holy ones,Unto whose dwelling-placeNow doth my soul draw near!How they so softly rest,All in their silent graves,Deep to corruptionSlowly don-sinking!
And they no longer weep,Here, where complaint is still!And they no longer feel,Here, where all gladness flies!And, by the cypressesSoftly o'ershadowedUntil the AngelCalls them, they slumber!
About this text
The Dead 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, The Dead, in A Psalm of Life, and Other Poems (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/the-dead.html, id L26173.
Form and metre
The Dead is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 A---A--- restA · ones · place · near · restA · graves · corruption · sinking
- 2 --ABB-A- weep · still · feelA · fliesB · cypressesB · o'ershadowed · angelA · slumber
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How they so softly rest, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| All they the holy ones, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Unto whose dwelling-place | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Now doth my soul draw near! | 6 | ······ |
| How they so softly rest, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| All in their silent graves, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Deep to corruption | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Slowly don-sinking! | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| And they no longer weep, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Here, where complaint is still! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| And they no longer feel, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Here, where all gladness flies! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And, by the cypresses | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| Softly o'ershadowed | 6 | /˘···˘ |
| Until the Angel | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Calls them, they slumber! | 5 | ···/˘ |
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.