Inscription for a Tomb in England
Read here, O friend unknown,Our grief, of her bereft;Yet think not tears aloneWithin our hearts are left.The gifts she came to give,Her heavenly love and cheer,Have made us glad to liveAnd die without a fear.
About this text
Inscription for a Tomb in England is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, Inscription for a Tomb in England, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/inscription-for-a-tomb-in-england.html, id L22897.
Form and metre
Inscription for a Tomb in England is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCD. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABABCDCD unknownA · bereftB · aloneA · leftB · giveC · cheerD · liveC · fearD
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Read here, O friend unknown, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Our grief, of her bereft; | 6 | /···˘/ |
| Yet think not tears alone | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Within our hearts are left. | 6 | ··/··· |
| The gifts she came to give, | 6 | ······ |
| Her heavenly love and cheer, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Have made us glad to live | 6 | ······ |
| And die without a fear. | 6 | ······ |
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.