Lambkin Mine
Kille, kille, lambkin mine,Though it often be hard to climbOver the rocks upswinging,Follow thy bell's sweet ringing!
Kille, kille, lambkin mine,Take good care of that fleece-coat thine!Sewed to one and another,Warm it shall keep my mother.
Kille, kille, lambkin mine,Feed and fatten thy flesh so fine!Know, you dear little sinner,Mother will have it for dinner!
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- sinner n.
- One who has sinned; especially, one who has sinned without repenting; hence, a persistent and incorrigible transgressor; one condemned by the law of God.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lambkin Mine is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, the Arthur Hubbell Palmer translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Lambkin Mine, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/lambkin-mine.html, id L29233.
Form and metre
Lambkin Mine is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 --AA mine · climb · upswingingA · ringingA
- 2 AABB mineA · thineA · anotherB · motherB
- 3 AABB mineA · fineA · sinnerB · dinnerB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Kille, kille, lambkin mine, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Though it often be hard to climb | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Over the rocks upswinging, | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Follow thy bell's sweet ringing! | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Kille, kille, lambkin mine, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Take good care of that fleece-coat thine! | 8 | ········ |
| Sewed to one and another, | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Warm it shall keep my mother. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Kille, kille, lambkin mine, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Feed and fatten thy flesh so fine! | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Know, you dear little sinner, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Mother will have it for dinner! | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
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.