Requiescat
Under the stone you behold,Buried, and coffined, and cold,Lieth Sir Wilfrid the Bold.
Always he marched in advance,Warring in Flanders and France,Doughty with sword and with lance.
Famous in Saracen fight,Rode in his youth the good knight,Scattering Paynims in flight.
Brian the Templar untrue,Fairly in tourney he slew,Saw Hierusalem too.
Now he is buried and gone,Lying beneath the gray stone:Where shall you find such a one?
Long time his widow deplored,Weeping the fate of her lord,Sadly cut off by the sword.
When she was eased of her pain,Came the good Lord Athelstane,When her ladyship married again.
Words in this poem
- doughty a.
- Able; strong; valiant; redoubtable; as, a doughty hero.
- rode n.
- Redness; complexion. [See Rud.]
- fairly adv.
- In a fairmanner; clearly; openly; plainly; fully; distinctly; frankly.
- tourney v. i.
- To perform in tournaments; to tilt. [Cf.OF. torneier. See Tourney, n.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- sadly adv.
- Wearily; heavily; firmly.
- ladyship n.
- The rank or position of a lady; -- given as a title (preceded by her or your.) Your ladyship shall observe their gravity. B. Jonson.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Requiescat is in the public domain. This text is taken from Ballads, Project Gutenberg ebook #2732; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Makepeace Thackeray, Requiescat, in Ballads (1849–1855), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/thackeray-ballads/requiescat.html, id L10387.
Form and metre
Requiescat is 21 lines in 7 stanzas of 3 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 83% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 AAA beholdA · coldA · boldA
- 2 AAA advanceA · franceA · lanceA
- 3 AAA fightA · knightA · flightA
- 4 AAA untrueA · slewA · tooA
- 6 AAA deploredA · lordA · swordA
- 7 AAA painA · athelstaneA · againA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Under the stone you behold, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Buried, and coffined, and cold, | 8 | /˘·/˘˘·· |
| Lieth Sir Wilfrid the Bold. | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Always he marched in advance, | 8 | /···˘·˘/ |
| Warring in Flanders and France, | 7 | /˘·/˘·· |
| Doughty with sword and with lance. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Famous in Saracen fight, | 7 | /˘·/˘˘· |
| Rode in his youth the good knight, | 7 | ······· |
| Scattering Paynims in flight. | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| Brian the Templar untrue, | 7 | /˘·/˘˘/ |
| Fairly in tourney he slew, | 7 | /˘·/˘·· |
| Saw Hierusalem too. | 6 | ······ |
| Now he is buried and gone, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Lying beneath the gray stone: | 7 | /˘····· |
| Where shall you find such a one? | 7 | ······· |
| Long time his widow deplored, | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| Weeping the fate of her lord, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Sadly cut off by the sword. | 7 | /˘····· |
| When she was eased of her pain, | 8 | ····˘··· |
| Came the good Lord Athelstane, | 7 | ······· |
| When her ladyship married again. | 9 | ··/˘˘/˘˘/ |
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.