Death
Death is here and death is there,Death is busy everywhere,All around, within, beneath,Above is death--and we are death.
Death has set his mark and sealOn all we are and all we feel,On all we know and all we fear,
First our pleasures die--and thenOur hopes, and then our fears--and whenThese are dead, the debt is due,Dust claims dust--and we die too.
All things that we love and cherish,Like ourselves must fade and perish;Such is our rude mortal lot--Love itself would, did they not.
About this text
Death is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #4798; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Death, in Ode to the West Wind, and Other Poems (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/death-2.html, id L16414.
Form and metre
Death is 15 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AABB thereA · everywhereA · beneathB · deathB
- 2 AA- sealA · feelA · fear
- 3 AABB thenA · whenA · dueB · tooB
- 4 AABB cherishA · perishA · lotB · notB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Death is here and death is there, | 7 | ······· |
| Death is busy everywhere, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| All around, within, beneath, | 7 | ······· |
| Above is death--and we are death. | 8 | ········ |
| Death has set his mark and seal | 7 | ······· |
| On all we are and all we feel, | 8 | ········ |
| On all we know and all we fear, | 8 | ········ |
| First our pleasures die--and then | 7 | ·//˘··· |
| Our hopes, and then our fears--and when | 8 | /···/··· |
| These are dead, the debt is due, | 7 | ······· |
| Dust claims dust--and we die too. | 7 | ······· |
| All things that we love and cherish, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Like ourselves must fade and perish; | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
| Such is our rude mortal lot-- | 7 | ··/·/˘· |
| Love itself would, did they not. | 7 | ·˘/···· |
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.