With This Book of Verse
When you and I were little tiny boysWe took a most impertinent delightIn foolish, painted and misshapen toysWhich hidden mothers brought to us at night.
Do you that have the child’s diviner part--The dear content a love familiar brings--Take these imperfect toys, till in your heartThey too attain the form of perfect things.
About this text
With This Book of Verse is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, With This Book of Verse, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/with-this-book-of-verse.html, id L21644.
Form and metre
With This Book of Verse is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABAB boysA · delightB · toysA · nightB
- 2 ABAB partA · bringsB · heartA · thingsB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When you and I were little tiny boys | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| We took a most impertinent delight | 10 | ····˘/˘˘˘/ |
| In foolish, painted and misshapen toys | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Which hidden mothers brought to us at night. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Do you that have the child’s diviner part-- | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| The dear content a love familiar brings-- | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘· |
| Take these imperfect toys, till in your heart | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| They too attain the form of perfect things. | 10 | ··˘/···/·· |
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.