A Child's Poem
Look! Look! the spring is come:O feel the gentle air,That wanders thro' the boughs to burstThe thick buds everywhere!The birds are glad to seeThe high unclouded sun:Winter is fled away, they sing,The gay time is begun.
Adown the meadows greenLet us go dance and play,And look for violets in the lane,And ramble far awayTo gather primroses,That in the woodland grow,And hunt for oxlips, or if yetThe blades of bluebells show:
There the old woodman gruffHath half the coppice cut,And weaves the hurdles all day longBeside his willow hut.We'll steal on him, and thenStartle him, all with gleeSinging our song of winter fledAnd summer soon to be.
Words in this poem
- adown adv.
- From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. [OE. adun, adoun, adune. AS. of dune off the hill. See Down.]
- woodman n.
- A forest officer appointed to take care of the king's woods; a forester. [Eng.]
- gruff a.
- Of a rough or stern manner, voice, or countenance; sour; surly; severe; harsh. [D. grof; akin to G. grob, OHG. gerob, grob, Dan. grov, Sw. grof, perh. akin to AS. rcófan to break, Z. reavc, rupture, g- standing for the AS. prefix ge-, Goth.]
- coppice n.
- A grove of small growth; a thicket of brushwood; a wood cut at certain times for fuel or other purposes. See Copse. [OF. copeiz, fr. coper, couper, to cut, F. couper, fr. cop, coup, colp, a blow, F. coup, L. colaphus, fr. G. Copse, and cf. Coup, Coupee.]
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Child's Poem is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas, Project Gutenberg ebook #37804; 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 Bridges, A Child's Poem, in The Growth of Love, and Other Poems (1873–1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37804, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bridges-shorter-poems/a-child-s-poem.html, id L01785.
Form and metre
A Child's Poem is 24 lines in 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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-B-B come · airA · burst · everywhereA · see · sunB · sing · begunB
- 2 -A-A-B-B green · playA · lane · awayA · primroses · growB · yet · showB
- 3 -A-A-B-B gruff · cutA · long · hutA · then · gleeB · fled · beB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Look! Look! the spring is come: | 6 | ······ |
| O feel the gentle air, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| That wanders thro' the boughs to burst | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The thick buds everywhere! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The birds are glad to see | 6 | ······ |
| The high unclouded sun: | 6 | ······ |
| Winter is fled away, they sing, | 8 | /˘··˘/·· |
| The gay time is begun. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Adown the meadows green | 6 | ˘/·/·· |
| Let us go dance and play, | 6 | ······ |
| And look for violets in the lane, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And ramble far away | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| To gather primroses, | 6 | ·/˘/·˘ |
| That in the woodland grow, | 6 | ···/·· |
| And hunt for oxlips, or if yet | 8 | ········ |
| The blades of bluebells show: | 6 | ···/·· |
| There the old woodman gruff | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Hath half the coppice cut, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And weaves the hurdles all day long | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Beside his willow hut. | 6 | ˘/·/·· |
| We'll steal on him, and then | 6 | ······ |
| Startle him, all with glee | 6 | /˘···· |
| Singing our song of winter fled | 8 | /˘/··/˘· |
| And summer soon to be. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.