Killed in Action
Your “Youth” has fallen from its shelf,And you have fallen, you yourself.They knocked a soldier on the head,I mourn the poet who fell dead.And yet I think it was by chance,By oversight you died in France.You were so poor an outward man,So small against your spirit’s span,That Nature, being tired awhile,Saw but your outward human pile;And Nature, who would never letA sun with light still in it set,Before you even reached your sky,In inadvertence let you die.
Words in this poem
- awhile adv.
- For a while; for some time; for a short time. [Adj. a + while time, interval.]
- inadvertence n.
- The quality of being inadvertent; lack of heedfulness or attentiveness; inattention; negligence; as, many mistakes proceed from inadvertence. [Cf. F. inadvertance.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Killed in Action is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Isaac Rosenberg, Project Gutenberg ebook #66889; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Isaac Rosenberg, Killed in Action, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66889, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rosenberg-poems/killed-in-action.html, id L02492.
Form and metre
Killed in Action is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG shelfA · yourselfA · headB · deadB · chanceC · franceC · manD · spanD · awhileE · pileE · letF · setF · skyG · dieG
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Your “Youth” has fallen from its shelf, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And you have fallen, you yourself. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| They knocked a soldier on the head, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I mourn the poet who fell dead. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And yet I think it was by chance, | 8 | ········ |
| By oversight you died in France. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| You were so poor an outward man, | 7 | ·····/· |
| So small against your spirit’s span, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That Nature, being tired awhile, | 7 | ·/˘//˘/ |
| Saw but your outward human pile; | 7 | ···//˘· |
| And Nature, who would never let | 7 | ·/˘··/· |
| A sun with light still in it set, | 8 | ········ |
| Before you even reached your sky, | 7 | ···/··· |
| In inadvertence let you die. | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
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.