The Morrow's Message
'Thou Ghost,' I said, 'and is thy name To-day?--Yesterday's son, with such an abject brow!--And can To-morrow be more pale than thou?'While yet I spoke, the silence answered: 'Yea,Henceforth our issue is all grieved and grey,And each beforehand makes such poor avowAs of old leaves beneath the budding boughOr night-drift that the sundawn shreds away.'
Then cried I: 'Mother of many malisons,O Earth, receive me to thy dusty bed!'But therewithal the tremulous silence said:'Lo! Love yet bids thy lady greet thee once:--Yea, twice,--whereby thy life is still the sun's;And thrice,--whereby the shadow of death is dead.'
Words in this poem
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- abject a.
- Cast down; low-lying. [L. abjectus, p. p. of abjicere to throw away; ab + jacere to throw. See Jet a shooting forth.]
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
- henceforth adv.
- From this time forward; henceforward.
- avow v. t.
- To bind, or to devote, by a vow. Wyclif. [OF. avouer, fr. LL. votare to vow, fr. L. votun. See Vote, n.]
- therewithal adv.
- Over and above; besides; moreover. Daniel.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Morrow's Message 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, The Morrow's Message, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/the-morrow-s-message.html, id L20958.
Form and metre
The Morrow's Message is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ABBAABBA dayA · browB · thouB · yeaA · greyA · avowB · boughB · awayA
- 2 ABBAAB malisonsA · bedB · saidB · onceA · sun'sA · deadB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 'Thou Ghost,' I said, 'and is thy name To-day?-- | 10 | ·········· |
| Yesterday's son, with such an abject brow!-- | 10 | /˘˘····/˘· |
| And can To-morrow be more pale than thou?' | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| While yet I spoke, the silence answered: 'Yea, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Henceforth our issue is all grieved and grey, | 10 | ////˘····· |
| And each beforehand makes such poor avow | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| As of old leaves beneath the budding bough | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Or night-drift that the sundawn shreds away.' | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Then cried I: 'Mother of many malisons, | 10 | ···/˘·/··· |
| O Earth, receive me to thy dusty bed!' | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| But therewithal the tremulous silence said: | 11 | ······/˘/˘· |
| 'Lo! Love yet bids thy lady greet thee once:-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Yea, twice,--whereby thy life is still the sun's; | 10 | ·········· |
| And thrice,--whereby the shadow of death is dead.' | 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.