Burial
Mine is a body that should die at sea!And have for a grave, instead of a graveSix feet deep and the length of me,All the water that is under the wave!
And terrible fishes to seize my flesh,Such as a living man might fear,And eat me while I am firm and fresh,--Not wait till I’ve been dead for a year!
About this text
Burial is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59167; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Burial, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/burial.html, id L24377.
Form and metre
Burial is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 seaA · graveB · meA · waveB
- 2 ABAB fleshA · fearB · freshA · yearB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Mine is a body that should die at sea! | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And have for a grave, instead of a grave | 10 | ·····˘/··· |
| Six feet deep and the length of me, | 8 | ········ |
| All the water that is under the wave! | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| And terrible fishes to seize my flesh, | 10 | ·/˘˘/˘···· |
| Such as a living man might fear, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And eat me while I am firm and fresh,-- | 9 | ········· |
| Not wait till I’ve been dead for a year! | 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.