A Little Boy Lost
"Nought loves another as itself,Nor venerates another so,Nor is it possible to thoughtA greater than itself to know.
"And, father, how can I love youOr any of my brothers more?I love you like the little birdThat picks up crumbs around the door."
The Priest sat by and heard the child;In trembling zeal he seized his hair,He led him by his little coat,And all admired the priestly care.
And standing on the altar high,"Lo, what a fiend is here!" said he:"One who sets reason up for judgeOf our most holy mystery."
The weeping child could not be heard,The weeping parents wept in vain:They stripped him to his little shirt,And bound him in an iron chain,
And burned him in a holy placeWhere many had been burned before;The weeping parents wept in vain.Are such thing done on Albion's shore?
Words in this poem
- admired a.
- Regarded with wonder and delight; highly prized; as, an admired poem.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Little Boy Lost is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook #574; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, A Little Boy Lost, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/a-little-boy-lost.html, id L02021.
Form and metre
A Little Boy Lost is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, as Wikipedia: A Little Boy Lost has it. 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-A itself · soA · thought · knowA
- 2 -A-A you · moreA · bird · doorA
- 3 -A-A child · hairA · coat · careA
- 4 AA-- highA · heA · judge · mystery
- 5 -A-A heard · vainA · shirt · chainA
- 6 -A-A place · beforeA · vain · shoreA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "Nought loves another as itself, | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| Nor venerates another so, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Nor is it possible to thought | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| A greater than itself to know. | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| "And, father, how can I love you | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Or any of my brothers more? | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I love you like the little bird | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That picks up crumbs around the door." | 8 | ········ |
| The Priest sat by and heard the child; | 8 | ········ |
| In trembling zeal he seized his hair, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| He led him by his little coat, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And all admired the priestly care. | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And standing on the altar high, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| "Lo, what a fiend is here!" said he: | 8 | ········ |
| "One who sets reason up for judge | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Of our most holy mystery." | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| The weeping child could not be heard, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The weeping parents wept in vain: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| They stripped him to his little shirt, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And bound him in an iron chain, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And burned him in a holy place | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Where many had been burned before; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The weeping parents wept in vain. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Are such thing done on Albion's shore? | 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.