The Dead Knight
The cleanly rush of the mountain air,And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees,Are the only things that wander there.The pitiful bones are laid at ease,The grass has grown in his tangled hair,And a rambling bramble binds his knees.
To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell,The only requiem bells that rangWere the harebell and the heather bell.Hushed he is with the holy spellIn the gentle hymn the wind sang,And he lies quiet, and sleeps well.He is bleached and blanched with the summer sun;The misty rain and the cold dewHave altered him from the kingly oneWhom his lady loved, and his men knew,And dwindled him to a skeleton.
The vetches have twined about his bones,The straggling ivy twists and creepsIn his eye-sockets: the nettle keepsVigil about him while he sleeps.Over his body the wind moansWith a dreary tune throughout the day,In a chorus wistful, eerie, thinAs the gulls' cry, as the cry in the bay,The mournful word the seas sayWhen tides are wandering out or in.
Words in this poem
- cleanly a.
- Habitually clean; pure; innocent. [From Clean.]
- mumbling a.
- Low; indistinct; inarticulate.
- bramble n.
- Any plant of the genus Rubus, including the raspberry and blackberry. Hence: Any rough, prickly shrub. [OE. brembil, AS.brbramal), fr. the same root as E. broom, As. br. See Broom.]
- shrieve v. t.
- To shrive; to question.
- requiem n.
- A mass said or sung for the repose of a departed soul. [Acc. of L. requies rest, the first words of the Mass being "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine," give eternal rest to them, O lord; pref. re- re + quies quiet. S]
- harebell n.
- A small, slender, branching plant (Campanula rotundifolia), having blue bell-shaped flowers; also, Scilla nutans, which has similar flowers; -- called also bluebell.
- bleached a.
- Whitened; make white.
- straggling a.
- from Straggle, v.
- vigil n.
- Abstinence from sleep, whether at a time when sleep is customary or not; the act of keeping awake, or the state of being awake, or the state of being awake; sleeplessness; wakefulness; watch. [OE. vigile, L. vigilia, from vigil awake, watchful, probably akin to E. wake: cf. F. vigile. See Wake, v. i., and cf. Reveille, Surveillance, Vedette, Vegetable]
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
- wistful a.
- Longing; wishful; desirous. [For wishful; perhaps influenced by wistly, which is probably corrupted from OE. wisly certainly (from Icel. viss certain, akin to E. wit). See Wish.]
- eerie a.
- Serving to inspire fear, esp. a dread of seeing ghosts; wild; weird; as, eerie stories. [Scotch, fr. AS. earh timid.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Dead Knight is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Story of a Round-House, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #40717; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Masefield, The Dead Knight, in The Story of a Round-House, and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #40717, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masefield-round-house/the-dead-knight.html, id L25008.
Form and metre
The Dead Knight is 27 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
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 ABABAB airA · beesB · thereA · easeB · hairA · kneesB
- 2 ABAABACDCDC hellA · rangB · bellA · spellA · sangB · wellA · sunC · dewD · oneC · knewD · skeletonC
- 3 ABBBACDCCD bonesA · creepsB · keepsB · sleepsB · moansA · dayC · thinD · bayC · sayC · inD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The cleanly rush of the mountain air, | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees, | 10 | ··/˘/˘˘/˘· |
| Are the only things that wander there. | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| The pitiful bones are laid at ease, | 9 | ·/˘˘····· |
| The grass has grown in his tangled hair, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| And a rambling bramble binds his knees. | 9 | ··/˘/˘··· |
| To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell, | 9 | ········· |
| The only requiem bells that rang | 9 | ·/˘/˘˘··· |
| Were the harebell and the heather bell. | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| Hushed he is with the holy spell | 9 | ·˘····/˘· |
| In the gentle hymn the wind sang, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| And he lies quiet, and sleeps well. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| He is bleached and blanched with the summer sun; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The misty rain and the cold dew | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Have altered him from the kingly one | 10 | ·/˘˘···/˘· |
| Whom his lady loved, and his men knew, | 10 | ··/˘·˘···· |
| And dwindled him to a skeleton. | 10 | ·/˘˘···/˘˘ |
| The vetches have twined about his bones, | 10 | ·····˘···· |
| The straggling ivy twists and creeps | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘··· |
| In his eye-sockets: the nettle keeps | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| Vigil about him while he sleeps. | 8 | /˘······ |
| Over his body the wind moans | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| With a dreary tune throughout the day, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| In a chorus wistful, eerie, thin | 9 | ··/˘/˘/˘· |
| As the gulls' cry, as the cry in the bay, | 10 | ·········· |
| The mournful word the seas say | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| When tides are wandering out or in. | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
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.