There Is a Word
poem 8
There Is a Word - meaning Summary
The Power of a Word
The poem personifies a single, lethal word that wounds silently and vanishes after striking. It contrasts public, ceremonial remembrance—an "epauletted Brother" dying on patriotic display—with a quieter, pervasive force that reaches every place. The closing lines assert a bleak irony: time’s greatest marksmanship is achieved not by fame but by forgetting. The poem meditates on language’s invisible power and the final erasure of individuals from memory.
Read Complete AnalysesThere is a word Which bears a sword Can pierce an armed man It hurls its barbed syllables And is mute again But where it fell The saved will tell On patriotic day, Some epauletted Brother Gave his breath away. Wherever runs the breathless sun Wherever roams the day There is its noiseless onset There is its victory! Behold the keenest marksman! The most accomplished shot! Time’s sublimest target Is a soul forgot!
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