A Nameless Grave by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
At Newport News, the speaker reflects on a nameless, dateless grave whose inscription identifies a Union soldier. Addressing the dead soldier, the speaker feels shame at having received the sacrifice of his life and name while being unable to give anything in return.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Sonnet, Elegiac Poetry, War Poetry · 158 words
First lines
"A soldier of the Union mustered out," / Is the inscription on an unknown grave / At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave, / Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout / Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout / Of battle, when the loud artillery drave / Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave / And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt. / Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea / In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame / I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn, / When I remember thou hast given for me / All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name, / And I can give thee nothing in return.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines turn from the soldier’s grave and possible circumstances of death to the speaker’s direct address and shame.
- Elegiac Poetry — The speaker commemorates an unnamed dead soldier and mourns the loss of both his life and his name.
- War Poetry — The Union soldier’s grave leads to imagined possibilities of death amid skirmishing, artillery fire, and an assault on a redoubt.
Tags
unknown soldiers · Union army · graves · military sacrifice · remembrance · sonnet
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A Nameless Grave is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Elegiac Poetry, War Poetry
- Length: 158 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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