Difficulties—Consent
'Night will come on; when seated snug,'And you've perhaps begun some tale,'Can you then leave your dear stone mug;'Leave all the folks, and all the Ale?'
'Ay, Kate, I wool;--because I know,'Though time has been we both could run,'Such days are gone and over now;--'I only mean to see the fun.'
She straight slipp'd off the Wall and Band,And laid aside her Lucks and Twitches:And to the Hutch [a chest] she reach'd her hand,And gave him out his Sunday Breeches.
His Mattock he behind the doorAnd Hedging-gloves again replac'd;And look'd across the yellow Moor,And urg'd his tott'ring Spouse to haste.
Words in this poem
- folks n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- kate n.
- The brambling finch.
- hutch v. t.
- To place in huts; to live in huts; as, to hut troops in winter quarters.
- mattock n.
- An implement for digging and grubbing. The head has two long steel blades, one like an adz and the other like a narrow ax or the point of a pickax. [AS. mattuc; cf. W. matog.]
- spouse v. t.
- To wed; to espouse. [See Espouse, and Spouse, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Difficulties—Consent is in the public domain. This text is taken from Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #9093; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Bloomfield, Difficulties—Consent, in Rural Tales, Ballads and Songs (1802), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9093, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bloomfield-tales/difficulties-consent.html, id L09665.
Form and metre
Difficulties—Consent is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 6% 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 ABAB snugA · taleB · mugA · aleB
- 2 -A-A know · runA · now · funA
- 3 A-A- bandA · twitches · handA · breeches
- 4 -A-A door · replac'dA · moor · hasteA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 'Night will come on; when seated snug, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| 'And you've perhaps begun some tale, | 8 | ··˘/˘/·· |
| 'Can you then leave your dear stone mug; | 8 | ········ |
| 'Leave all the folks, and all the Ale?' | 8 | ········ |
| 'Ay, Kate, I wool;--because I know, | 8 | ········ |
| 'Though time has been we both could run, | 8 | ········ |
| 'Such days are gone and over now;-- | 8 | ········ |
| 'I only mean to see the fun.' | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| She straight slipp'd off the Wall and Band, | 8 | ········ |
| And laid aside her Lucks and Twitches: | 9 | ··˘/···/˘ |
| And to the Hutch [a chest] she reach'd her hand, | 10 | ·········· |
| And gave him out his Sunday Breeches. | 9 | ·····/·/˘ |
| His Mattock he behind the door | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And Hedging-gloves again replac'd; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·/ |
| And look'd across the yellow Moor, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And urg'd his tott'ring Spouse to haste. | 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.