The Grave
If from the abysses of the grave,We could tear up the hearts there mouldering,And kindle them in a gigantic fire,Then watch them burning, blazing, smouldering,O who could nameThe many colours of the flame,Which would burst forth from the funereal pyre?
Words in this poem
- smouldering a.
- Being in a state of suppressed activity; quiet but not dead.
- pyre n.
- A funeral pile; a combustible heap on which the dead are burned; hence, any pile to be burnt. [L. pure, Gr. Fire.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Grave is in the public domain. This text is taken from Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet, by Sir John Bowring (London: Trübner & Co., 1866), Internet Archive, the John Bowring translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sándor Petőfi, The Grave, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/the-grave.html, id L29813.
Form and metre
The Grave is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
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 -ABACCB grave · moulderingA · fireB · smoulderingA · nameC · flameC · pyreB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If from the abysses of the grave, | 9 | ···˘/˘··· |
| We could tear up the hearts there mouldering, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And kindle them in a gigantic fire, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘/ |
| Then watch them burning, blazing, smouldering, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| O who could name | 4 | ···· |
| The many colours of the flame, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Which would burst forth from the funereal pyre? | 11 | ······˘/˘˘/ |
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.