We have a speaker talking about himself in the third person, like he's another character, separate from himself. It sounds kind of mixed up right? When we consider the speaker's state of mind, this poem's mixed up syntax starts make a certain amount of sense.
Henry is mixed up. He's not sleeping. He's super-duper-sad. He has violent thoughts, and he's having a hard time differentiating between reality and imagination. The awkwardness in phrases like, "in all them time," and lines like, "But never did Henry, as he thought he did, / end anyone and hacks her body up / and hide the pieces," reflects the confusion and awkwardness that Henry feels. These phrases and lines sound off when we hear them. There are also those repeated end words in the last stanza: "up" and "missing." That repetition in such a short stanza feels kind of obsessive—like the way someone in an emotional state keeps repeating the same thing over and over again. The way this poem sounds really mirrors the speaker's internal, emotional state—mixed up and manic.
We know what you're thinking (we're kind of psychic like that), "This is supposed to be a song, isn't it? Well, you sure can't dance to it." Good catch Shmoopers. It is indeed titled as a song. But what kind of song? Well, how about the dream kind? And as we all know, things in dreams can be, well, a little off. So, we have a song that doesn't sound very song-like. That's the way things go in the dream-world. Deal.
What do you notice when you read the poem's first two lines aloud (besides people staring at you like you're a crazy person)?
There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years (1-2)
That's a lot of H sounds for two lines, right? What you're noticing is the alliteration in those two lines. It gives the beginning of the poem a kind of nursery rhyme feeling. The way the beginning of the poem sounds doesn't reflect the content. We have happy, bouncy sounds describing an epic sadness—just another example of how everything in this dream world is just a little off and unexpected.