The Little Boy Lost
"Father, father, where are you going?Oh do not walk so fast!Speak, father, speak to your little boy,Or else I shall be lost."
The night was dark, no father was there,The child was wet with dew;The mire was deep, and the child did weep,And away the vapour flew.
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,]
- vapour n.
- Any substance in the gaseous, or aëriform, state, the condition of which is ordinarily that of a liquid or solid. [OE. vapour, OF. vapour, vapor, vapeur, F. vapeur, L. vapor; probably for cvapor, and akin to Gr. kvepti to breathe, smell, Russ. kopote fine soot. Cf. Vapid.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The 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, The Little Boy Lost, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/the-little-boy-lost.html, id L01988.
Form and metre
The Little Boy Lost is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, as Wikipedia: The Little Boy Lost has it. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in common measure.
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.
- 2 -A-A there · dewA · weep · flewA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "Father, father, where are you going? | 9 | /˘/˘···/˘ |
| Oh do not walk so fast! | 6 | ······ |
| Speak, father, speak to your little boy, | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| Or else I shall be lost." | 6 | ······ |
| The night was dark, no father was there, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| The child was wet with dew; | 6 | ······ |
| The mire was deep, and the child did weep, | 9 | ········· |
| And away the vapour flew. | 7 | ·˘/·/˘· |
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.