Analysis of Forgotten Dead, I Salute You
Muriel Stuart 1885 – 1967
Dawn has flashed up the startled skies,
Night has gone out beneath the hill
Many sweet times; before our eyes
Dawn makes and unmakes about us still
The magic that we call the rose.
The gentle history of the rain
Has been unfolded, traced and lost
By the sharp finger-tips of frost;
Birds in the hawthorn build again;
The hare makes soft her secret house;
The wind at tourney comes and goes,
Spurring the green, unharnessed boughs;
The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim:
He knew the beauty of all those
Last year, and who remembers him?
Love sometimes walks the waters still,
Laughter throws back her radiant head;
Utterly beauty is not gone,
And wonder is not wholly dead.
The starry, mortal world rolls on;
Between sweet sounds and silences,
With new, strange wines her beakers brim:
He lost his heritage with these
Last year, and who remembers him?
None remember him: he lies
In earth of some strange-sounding place,
Nameless beneath the nameless skies,
The wind his only chant, the rain
The only tears upon his face;
Far and forgotten utterly
By living man. Yet such as he
Have made it possible and sure
For other lives to have, to be;
For men to sleep content, secure.
Lip touches lip and eyes meet eyes
Because his heart beats not again:
His rotting, fruitless body lies
That sons may grow from other men.
He gave, as Christ, the life he hadÑ
The only life desired or known;
The great, sad sacrifice was made
For strangers; this forgotten dead
Went out into the night alone.
There was his body broken for you,
There was his blood divinely shed
That in the earth lie lost and dim.
Eat, drink, and often as you do,
For whom he died, remember him.
Scheme | ababcdeefxcxgcG bhxhxxgxG aiadijjkjkafaf xlxhlmhgmg |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101 11110101 101101101 11010111 01011101 010100101 11010101 10110111 1001101 01110101 01110101 100111 01111011 11010111 11010101 10110101 101101001 10010111 01011101 01010111 01110100 1111011 11110011 11010101 1010111 01111101 10010101 01110101 01010111 10010100 11011111 11110001 11011111 11111001 11010111 01111101 11010101 11111101 11110111 010101011 0111011 11010101 11010101 111101011 11110101 10011101 11010111 11110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,613 |
Words | 302 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 9, 14, 10 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 325 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 75 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:30 min read
- 141 Views
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"Forgotten Dead, I Salute You" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28345/forgotten-dead%2C-i-salute-you>.
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