The Little Boy Found
The little boy lost in the lonely fen,Led by the wandering light,Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,Appeared like his father, in white.
He kissed the child, and by the hand led,And to his mother brought,Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,Her little boy weeping sought.
About this text
The Little Boy Found is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Project Gutenberg ebook #1934; 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 Found, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1934, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-songs/the-little-boy-found.html, id L02877.
Form and metre
The Little Boy Found is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 71% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables.
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 -A-A fen · lightA · nigh · whiteA
- 2 -A-A led · broughtA · dale · soughtA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The little boy lost in the lonely fen, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Led by the wandering light, | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Began to cry, but God, ever nigh, | 9 | ˘/····/˘· |
| Appeared like his father, in white. | 8 | ˘/··/˘·· |
| He kissed the child, and by the hand led, | 9 | ········· |
| And to his mother brought, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale, | 10 | ··/˘···/˘· |
| Her little boy weeping sought. | 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.