To say that Victor Hugo was a poet immensely preoccupied with meditations on death is perhaps a grave understatement. But his focus on the subject, fueled by personal grief and altruistic empathy, led to some heart-achingly sincere and beautiful lines of verse on the matter. The poem ‘The Grave and The Rose’ might not be his most well-known or favored, but it does reveal his seemingly endless capacity for discussing the ramifications of death on life.
What is interesting about this Hugo poem, in particular, is the way the poet appears to somewhat distance himself from death itself, taking on the persona of a grave and rose, as opposed to the first-person human narrator that usually serves as his speaker. The result is a poem that uses two heavily symbolic images/personified characters to comment on the necessity of change in the world around us and that such alterations (like death) are ineffably beautiful by design.
The Grave and The Rose Victor HugoThe Grave said to the Rose,"What of the dews of dawn,Love's flower, what end is theirs?""And what of spirits flown,The souls whereon doth closeThe tomb's mouth unawares?"The Rose said to the Grave.The Rose said, "In the shadeFrom the dawn's tears is madeA perfume faint and strange,Amber and honey sweet.""And all the spirits fleetDo suffer a sky-change,More strangely than the dew,To God's own angels new,"The Grave said to the Rose.
Summary
‘The Grave and The Rose’ by Victor Hugo depicts a conversation about the fate of things after they expire.
‘The Grave and The Rose’ unfolds as a dialogue between a grave and a rose. The first stanza sees them asking each other a question that is subsequently answered in the second stanza. The grave begins the conversation by asking the rose about the fate of “the dews of dawn” after they’ve melted away, while the rose asks a similar question about those “spirits flown” who’ve died.
The rose answers first in the second stanza, describing how “the dawn’s tears” are made into “a perfume faint and strange, / Amber and honey sweet.” In other words, the dew undergoes an elemental transformation from a glistening liquid to a pleasingly scented aroma. Unsurprisingly, the grave’s reply parallels the one given by the rose: “And all the spirits fleet / Do suffer a sky-change.” Much like the dew’s transformation, the souls of the dead also head skyward to become “God’s own angels new.”
Structure and Form
‘The Grave and The Rose’ is composed of two stanzas, one with seven lines and one with nine. The poem has an erratic rhyme scheme of ‘ABCBACD EEFGGFHHA.’ Most of the lines in the poem employ iambic trimester, meaning that each line is composed of three pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables.
This results in relatively short lines that curb the dialogue between the grave and the rose, turning their questions and answers into a series of abrupt images and concepts rather than a single continuous expression. But it also contributes to the poem’s childlike voice and naivete.
Literary Devices
‘The Grave and The Rose’ mainly uses imagery and figurative language. There is personification: “The Grave said to the Rose” (1); “The tomb’s mouth unawares?” (6); “The Rose said to the Grave” (7); “The dawn’s tears” (9). As well as metaphor: “spirits flown” (4); “sky-change” (13). There is also visual imagery: “the dews of dawn” (2), and olfactory imagery: “A perfume faint and strange, / Amber and honey sweet” (10-11).
Detailed Analysis
Stanza One
The Grave said to the Rose,
“What of the dews of dawn,
Love’s flower, what end is theirs?”
“And what of spirits flown,
The souls whereon doth close
The tomb’s mouth unawares?”
The Rose said to the Grave.
The first stanza of ‘The Grave and The Rose’ is comprised of two successive questions spoken by a personified grave and rose to one another. The grave asks the rose about the fate of the morning dew while the rose inquires in turn about where souls go after death. The questions emphasize a parallel between the dew and those “spirits flown” (4) that instills some of the similarities between the two.
The stanza’s visual imagery also implies a material and optical likeness as well. The image of the “dews of dawn” (2) manifests an incandescent and slightly ethereal view of the water droplets that have collected in the early morning moisture. This vivid piece of imagery stays with the reader when the rose asks about the “souls whereon doth close / The tomb’s mouth” (6). Entangling the radiant dew with the typically vaporous and ghostly mental image people seem to conjure up when imagining a soul.
Stanza Two
The Rose said, “In the shade
From the dawn’s tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,
Amber and honey sweet.”
“And all the spirits fleet
Do suffer a sky-change,
More strangely than the dew,
To God’s own angels new,”
The Grave said to the Rose.
The second stanza of ‘The Grave and The Rose’ provides the respective answers to the questions asked by the grave and the rose. Answering first, the flower describes how “dawn’s tears [are] made / A perfume faint and strange” (9-10). On the surface, what the rose is describing is the dew’s evaporation into the air and/or its absorption into the plant.
The essential point of their answers is to emphasize that although the dew itself might appear to no longer exist, it still does in the “amber and honey sweet” (11) scent left behind. While the description of the dew as tears implies they are mourned for — not unlike the souls of the dead are grieved over by their loved ones — creating another parallel between the two.
The grave’s answer also emphasizes an airy transcendence: “And the spirits fleet / Do suffer a sky-change” (12-13). This “sky-change” parallels the dew’s evaporation into the air and results in the souls becoming “God’s own angels new” (15). But the grave indicates that although this process might be analogous to the dew, the transformation of souls occurs “more strangely than the dew” (14), highlighting the sublime and ambiguous transition souls undergo.
FAQs
The poem’s theme is that certain transfigurations — like death — are inherent pieces of life that should not be feared. After all, elemental changes occur every day around us and often without our notice. So whether it is the dew melting or a loved one passing away, the poem urges us to take comfort in the fact that they are both never truly gone. Be it a sensory memory we cling to or the faith that they’ve transcended to an ethereal plain of existence, both offer comfort.
Hugo was a poet acquainted with the tragedy of unexpectedly losing a loved one. So it is unsurprising that his poetry is often occupied by questions about death, grief, and how to renew a life made vacant by a beloved’s absence. But compared to some of his other poems, this one wrestles with the question of death at arm’s length. Opting for the personified perspective of a grave and rose as opposed to that of a person who has just lost someone.
The way the poem deals with questions of death and the afterlife, as well as the lush presence of nature throughout, make it a great example of Romantic verse. But even just the title alone highlights those tenets. Hugo uses perhaps the most archetypal images possible for Romanticism — a grave and a rose — as the primary characters and symbols for his poem.
Apart from inspiring visually similar images in the reader’s mind, they also have thematic similarities as well. Just like the dew, the bodies from which souls depart are fleeting and exist for a relatively short period of time. They’re also immensely fragile: the sun evaporates even dew that’s shaded, and the corporeal figures that hold the soul are just as vulnerable. This also underscores the favorable meekness to dew that a Romantic like Hugo would have appreciated as a desirable analogy to humanity’s sublime minuteness.
Similar Poems
If you enjoyed ‘The Grave and The Rose,’ be sure to read these other poems by Victor Hugo as well:
- ‘More Strong Than Time’ – this poem describes the invigorating effect love has on a person.
- ‘Tomorrow, At Dawn’ – this poem also deals with death, conveying intense grief through a journey to the grave of a loved one.
- ‘Sunset’ – this poem also sees the poet exploring the nature of death and its relationship with time.
