Analysis of Down Among The Dead Men
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
Within my dark and narrow bed
I rested well, new-laid:
I heard above my fleshless head
The grinding of a spade.
A gruffer note ensued and grew
To harsh and harsher strains:
The poet Welcker then I knew
Was 'snatching' my remains.
'O Welcker, let your hand be stayed
And leave me here in peace.
Of your revenge you should have made
An end with my decease.'
'Hush, Mouldyshanks, and hear my moan:
I once, as you're aware,
Was eminent in letters-known
And honored everywhere.
'My splendor made all Berkeley bright
And Sacramento blind.
Men swore no writer e'er could write
Like me-if I'd a mind.
'With honors all insatiate,
With curst ambition smit,
Too far, alas! I tempted fate
I _published_ what I'd writ!
'Good Heaven! with what a hunger wild
Oblivion swallows fame!
Men who have known me from a child
Forget my very name!
'Even creditors with searching looks
My face cannot recall;
My heaviest one-he prints my books
Oblivious most of all.
'O I should feel a sweet content
If one poor dun his claim
Would bring to me for settlement,
And bully me by name.
'My dog is at my gate forlorn;
It howls through all the night,
And when I greet it in the morn
It answers with a bite!'
'O Poet, what in Satan's name
To me's all this ado?
Will snatching me restore the fame
That printing snatched from you?'
'Peace, dread Remains; I'm not about
To do a deed of sin.
I come not here to hale you out
I'm trying to get in.'
Scheme | ABAB CDCD BEBE FGFG HIHI AJXJ KLKL MNMN XLXL OHOH LCLC PQPQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 01110101 110111 1101111 010101 0110101 110101 0101111 110101 1111111 011101 11011111 111101 110111 111101 11000101 01010 11011101 00101 111101011 111101 11011 110101 11011101 11111 110110101 0100101 11111101 011101 101001101 11101 110011111 0100111 11110110 111111 11111100 010111 11111101 111101 01111001 110101 1101011 111101 11010101 110111 11011101 110111 11111111 110110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,371 |
Words | 269 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 90 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 76 Views
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"Down Among The Dead Men" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1763/down-among-the-dead-men>.
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