Peer—equal
There was an old woman had three sons,Jerry and James and John:Jerry was hung, James was drowned,John was lost and never was found;And there was an end of her three sons,Jerry, and James, and John!
About this text
Peer—equal is in the public domain. This text is taken from Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, Project Gutenberg ebook #649; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Bell, Peer—equal, in Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England (1857), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #649, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bell-ancient-poems/peer-equal.html, id L12018.
Form and metre
Peer—equal is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABCCAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABCCAB sonsA · johnB · drownedC · foundC · sonsA · johnB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There was an old woman had three sons, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Jerry and James and John: | 6 | /˘···· |
| Jerry was hung, James was drowned, | 8 | /˘·····˘ |
| John was lost and never was found; | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| And there was an end of her three sons, | 9 | ········· |
| Jerry, and James, and John! | 6 | /˘···· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.