Exspecto Resurrectionem
Oh! King who hast the keyOf that dark room,The last which prisons us but held not Thee,Thou know’st its gloom.Dost Thou a little love this oneShut in to-night,Young and so piteously alone,Cold--out of sight?Thou know’st how hard and bareThe pillow of that new-made narrow bed,Then leave not thereSo dear a head!
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Exspecto Resurrectionem is in the public domain. This text is taken from The farmer's bride, Project Gutenberg ebook #71305; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charlotte Mew, Exspecto Resurrectionem, in The Farmer's Bride (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #71305, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mew-farmers-bride/exspecto-resurrectionem.html, id L02470.
Form and metre
Exspecto Resurrectionem is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.0 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
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-C-CDEDE keyA · roomB · theeA · gloomB · one · nightC · alone · sightC · bareD · bedE · thereD · headE
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oh! King who hast the key | 6 | ······ |
| Of that dark room, | 4 | ···· |
| The last which prisons us but held not Thee, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Thou know’st its gloom. | 4 | ···· |
| Dost Thou a little love this one | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Shut in to-night, | 4 | ···· |
| Young and so piteously alone, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Cold--out of sight? | 4 | ···· |
| Thou know’st how hard and bare | 6 | ······ |
| The pillow of that new-made narrow bed, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Then leave not there | 4 | ···· |
| So dear a head! | 4 | ···· |
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.