Death's Songsters
When first that horse, within whose populous wombThe birth was death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate,Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight,Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home:She whispered, 'Friends, I am alone; come, come!'Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid,And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laidHis hands, and held them till the voice was dumb.
The same was he who, lashed to his own mast,There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel-caves,Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd,Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves...Say, soul,--are songs of Death no heaven to thee,Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory?
Words in this poem
- populous a.
- Abounding in people; full of inhabitants; containing many inhabitants in proportion to the extent of the country. [L. populosus, fr. populus people: cf. F. populeux.]
- womb n.
- The belly; the abdomen. [OE. wombe, wambe, AS. wamb, womb; akin to D. wam belly, OS. & OHG. wamba, G. wamme, wampe, Icel. vömb, Sw. v&mb, Dan. vom, Goth. wamba.]
- dubious a.
- Doubtful or not settled in opinion; being in doubt; wavering or fluctuating; undetermined. [L. dubius, dubiosus, fr. duo two. See Two, and cf. Doubt.]
- crouched a.
- Marked with the sign of the cross. Crouched friar. See Crutched friar, under Crutched.
- inveterate a.
- Old; long-established. [L. inveteratus, p. p. of inveterare to render old; pref. in- in + vetus, veteris, old. See Veteran.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Death's Songsters is in the public domain. This text is taken from The House of Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #3692; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Death's Songsters, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/death-s-songsters.html, id L21003.
Form and metre
Death's Songsters is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 -AABBCCB womb · fateA · freightA · homeB · comeB · afraidC · laidC · dumbB
- 2 ABAB-- mastA · cavesB · pass'dA · wavesB · thee · victory
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When first that horse, within whose populous womb | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The birth was death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate, | 10 | ·········· |
| Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| She whispered, 'Friends, I am alone; come, come!' | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid, | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laid | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| His hands, and held them till the voice was dumb. | 10 | ·········· |
| The same was he who, lashed to his own mast, | 10 | ·········· |
| There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel-caves, | 10 | ····/··/˘· |
| Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd, | 10 | ˘/·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves... | 11 | ·/˘·˘/·˘/˘· |
| Say, soul,--are songs of Death no heaven to thee, | 10 | ·······/·· |
| Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory? | 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.