Epitaph Unfinished
Great soul! for whom Death will no longer stay,But sends in haste to snatch our bliss away.O cruel Death! to those you take more kind,Than to the wretched mortals left behind!Here beauty, youth, and noble virtue shined,Free from the clouds of pride that shade the mind.Inspirèd verse may on this marble live,But can no honour to thy ashes give--
Words in this poem
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epitaph Unfinished is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham, Project Gutenberg ebook #12322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Waller, Epitaph Unfinished, in Poetical Works (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/epitaph-unfinished.html, id L09132.
Form and metre
Epitaph Unfinished is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBBBCC stayA · awayA · kindB · behindB · shinedB · mindB · liveC · giveC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Great soul! for whom Death will no longer stay, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| But sends in haste to snatch our bliss away. | 10 | ······/·˘/ |
| O cruel Death! to those you take more kind, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Than to the wretched mortals left behind! | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Here beauty, youth, and noble virtue shined, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Free from the clouds of pride that shade the mind. | 10 | ·········· |
| Inspirèd verse may on this marble live, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| But can no honour to thy ashes give-- | 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.