The Tombstone-Maker
He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his headAgainst a sorrowing angel's breast, and said:"You'd think so much bereavement would have madeUnusual big demands upon my trade.The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk--Unless the fighting, stops I'll soon be broke."
He eyed the Cemetery across the road--"There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while,That should be here by rights; they little know'dHow they'd get buried in such wretched style."
I told him, with a sympathetic grin,That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat;And he was horrified. "What shameful sin!O sir, that Christian men should come to that!"
Words in this poem
- bereavement n.
- The state of being bereaved; deprivation; esp., the loss of a relative by death.
- 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.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
- cemetery n.
- A place or ground set apart for the burial of the dead; a graveyard; a churchyard; a necropolis.
- grin n.
- A snare; a gin. [AS. grin.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Tombstone-Maker is in the public domain. This text is taken from The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, Project Gutenberg ebook #45199; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Siegfried Sassoon, The Tombstone-Maker, in The War Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #45199, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-war-poems/the-tombstone-maker.html, id L17262.
Form and metre
The Tombstone-Maker is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABBCC headA · saidA · madeB · tradeB · folkC · brokeC
- 2 ABAB roadA · whileB · know'dA · styleB
- 3 ABAB grinA · fatB · sinA · thatB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head | 10 | ·········· |
| Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said: | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| "You'd think so much bereavement would have made | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Unusual big demands upon my trade. | 10 | ˘/˘·˘/···· |
| The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Unless the fighting, stops I'll soon be broke." | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| He eyed the Cemetery across the road-- | 11 | ···/˘·˘˘/·· |
| "There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| That should be here by rights; they little know'd | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| How they'd get buried in such wretched style." | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| I told him, with a sympathetic grin, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And he was horrified. "What shameful sin! | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| O sir, that Christian men should come to that!" | 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.