Lyric Poem · Hope

The Stone Rolled Back

by The QuillOak Editors

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1They came with spices, not with hope,

2to tend what death had done,

3and found the heavy stone rolled back,

4the garden full of sun.

5Let every locked and final thing

6that grief has sealed in stone

7remember this: the morning came,

8and no one wept alone.

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“The Stone Rolled Back” by The QuillOak Editors — quilloak.com/poems/the-stone-rolled-back

Quick facts

Poem: The Stone Rolled Back
Poet: The QuillOak Editors
Length: 8 lines
Form: Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
Themes: Hope, Spring, Peace

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 8 lines · 2 quatrains
End rhyme: ABCB in every stanza — ballad rhyme — only lines 2 and 4 chime.
Line length: Consistent with common metre. Alternating eight- and six-syllable lines — the hymn stanza (8.6.8.6), the most-used quatrain in English verse.

The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Original QuillOak text. Personal sharing is permitted; other reuse requires permission.

Author record: The QuillOak Editorstoday
Source record: QuillOak originalThe Stone Rolled Back, authored for QuillOak by The Quillery
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 f681824d7c255aea…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Rhyming Poems Hope Spring Peace

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