Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave

Commoratio is a rhetorical device in which the same idea is repeated using slightly different wording each time. In this poem, the opening lines of each stanza feature different wording about someone digging on the speaker’s grave: “Ah, are you digging on my grave” (Line 1); “Then who is digging on my grave” (Line 7); “But someone digs upon my grave?” (Line 13); “Then who is digging on my grave?” (Line 19); “Ah yes! You dig upon my grave...” (Line 25); and “Mistress, I dug upon your grave” (Line 31). This use of commoratio draws the reader’s attention repeatedly to the gravesite as the poem’s setting, while also setting up the soon-predictable dialogic structure between the speaker and her dog, in which the disintegration of her former relationships is revealed over and over again.

The poem is suffused with a sense of dark irony that builds up stanza by stanza. The speaker hopefully names a potential visitor, believing herself to still be loved (or at least remembered) by those who once played an important role in her life. In response to each of her guesses, the dog reveals the extent of the speaker’s utter neglect by all her former ties, offering an ironic contrast between what the speaker imagines the state of her former relationships to be and the cruel reality.