by Coleridge · Cluster: Mortality · Grave · Memento Mori
Abstract
A comic mock-epitaph punning on the name ‘Dieman’ (dead man) and demoting the dead major from Major to ‘Corporal’ once his soul has gone.
Connections
Topoi: Memento Mori Motifs: Grave Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Satire of Society Forms & Genres: Epigram
Testo integrale / Full text
Know thou who walks’t by, Man! that wrapp’d up in lead, man,
What once was a Dieman, now lies here a dead man.
Alive a proud MAJOR! but ah me! of our poor all,
The soul having gone, he is now merely Corporal.
? 1800. Now first published from MS.