Requiem
WHERE faces are hueless, where eyelids are dewless,Where passion is silent and hearts never crave;Where thought hath no theme, and where sleep hath no dream,In patience and peace thou art gone—to thy grave!Gone where no warning can wake thee to morning,Dead tho’ a thousand hands stretch’d out to save.
Thou cam’st to us sighing, and singing and dying,How could it be otherwise, fair as thou wert?Placidly fading, and sinking and shadingAt last to that shadow, the latest desert;Wasting and waning, but still, still remaining.Alas for the hand that could deal the death-hurt!
The Summer that brightens, the Winter that whitens,The world and its voices, the sea and the sky,The bloom of creation, the tie of relation,All—all is a blank to thine ear and thine eye;The ear may not listen, the eye may not glisten,Nevermore waked by a smile or a sigh.
The tree that is rootless must ever be fruitless;And thou art alone in thy death and thy birth;No last loving token of wedded love broken,No sign of thy singleness, sweetness and worth;Lost as the flower that is drowned in the shower,Fall’n like a snowflake to melt in the earth.
Words in this poem
- hueless a.
- Destitute of color. Hudibras. [AS. hiwleás. See Hue color.]
- crave v. t.
- To ask with earnestness or importunity; to ask with submission or humility; to beg; to entreat; to beseech; to implore. [AS. crafian; akin to Icel. krefia, Sw. kr, Dan. kr.]
- placidly adv.
- In a placid manner.
- fading n.
- An Irish dance; also, the burden of a song.
- waning n.
- The act or process of waning, or decreasing.
- nevermore adv.
- Never again; at no time hereafter. Testament of Love. Tyndale.
- rootless a.
- Destitute of roots.
- fruitless a.
- Lacking, or not bearing, fruit; barren; destitute of offspring; as, a fruitless tree or shrub; a fruitless marriage.
- wedded a.
- Joined in wedlock; married.
- singleness n.
- The quality or state of being single, or separate from all others; the opposite of doubleness, complication, or multiplicity.
- snowflake n.
- A flake, or small filmy mass, of snow.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Requiem is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems — Volume 1, Project Gutenberg ebook #1381; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George Meredith, Requiem, in Poems, Volume I (1851–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1381, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/meredith-poems/requiem.html, id L13142.
Form and metre
Requiem is 24 lines in 4 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.1 syllables. 12 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in anapaestic 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-A dewless · craveA · dream · graveA · morning · saveA
- 2 -A-A-A dying · wertA · shading · desertA · remaining · hurtA
- 3 -A-A-A whitens · skyA · relation · eyeA · glisten · sighA
- 4 -A-A-A fruitless · birthA · broken · worthA · shower · earthA
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| WHERE faces are hueless, where eyelids are dewless, | 12 | ·/˘·/˘·/··/˘ |
| Where passion is silent and hearts never crave; | 10 | ·/˘·/˘··/· |
| Where thought hath no theme, and where sleep hath no dream, | 11 | ··········· |
| In patience and peace thou art gone—to thy grave! | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Gone where no warning can wake thee to morning, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Dead tho’ a thousand hands stretch’d out to save. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Thou cam’st to us sighing, and singing and dying, | 12 | ····/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| How could it be otherwise, fair as thou wert? | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Placidly fading, and sinking and shading | 11 | /˘˘/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| At last to that shadow, the latest desert; | 11 | ····/··/˘/˘ |
| Wasting and waning, but still, still remaining. | 11 | /˘·/˘···˘/˘ |
| Alas for the hand that could deal the death-hurt! | 11 | ˘/········· |
| The Summer that brightens, the Winter that whitens, | 12 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| The world and its voices, the sea and the sky, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| The bloom of creation, the tie of relation, | 12 | ···˘/˘···˘/˘ |
| All—all is a blank to thine ear and thine eye; | 11 | ··········· |
| The ear may not listen, the eye may not glisten, | 12 | ····/˘····/˘ |
| Nevermore waked by a smile or a sigh. | 10 | /˘········ |
| The tree that is rootless must ever be fruitless; | 11 | ····/˘·/·/˘ |
| And thou art alone in thy death and thy birth; | 11 | ···˘/······ |
| No last loving token of wedded love broken, | 12 | ··/˘/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| No sign of thy singleness, sweetness and worth; | 11 | ····/˘˘/˘·· |
| Lost as the flower that is drowned in the shower, | 11 | ···/·····/˘ |
| Fall’n like a snowflake to melt in the earth. | 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.