An Epitaph
O mortal folk, you may behold and seeHow I lie here, sometime a mighty knight;The end of joy and all prosperiteeIs death at last, thorough his course and might:After the day there cometh the dark night,For though the daye be never so long,At last the bells ringeth to evensong.
Words in this poem
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- sometime adv.
- At a past time indefinitely referred to; once; formerly.
- evensong n.
- A song for the evening; the evening service or form of worship (in the Church of England including vespers and compline); also, the time of evensong. Wyclif. [AS. æfensang.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Epitaph is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Stephen Hawes, An Epitaph, in Poems (1523), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-stephen-hawes/an-epitaph.html, id L15952.
Form and metre
An Epitaph is 7 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 -A-AABB see · knightA · prosperitee · mightA · nightA · longB · evensongB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O mortal folk, you may behold and see | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| How I lie here, sometime a mighty knight; | 10 | ····/··/˘· |
| The end of joy and all prosperitee | 10 | ·········· |
| Is death at last, thorough his course and might: | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| After the day there cometh the dark night, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For though the daye be never so long, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| At last the bells ringeth to evensong. | 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.