Jane: "Why, John, What a Litter Here! You've Thrown Things All Around!"
Come, what's the matter now? and what 've you lost or found?And here's my father here, a-waiting for supper, too;I've been a-riding with him--he's that "handsomer man than you."
Ha! ha! Pa, take a seat, while I put the kettle on,And get things ready for tea, and kiss my dear old John.Why, John, you look so strange! Come, what has crossed your track?I was only a-joking, you know; I'm willing to take it back.
Words in this poem
- kettle n.
- A metallic vessel, with a wide mouth, often without a cover, used for heating and boiling water or other liguids. Kettle pins, ninepins; skittles. Shelton. [OE. ketel; cf. AS. cetel, cetil, cytel; akin to D. kjedel, G. kessel, OHG. chezzil, Icel. ketill, SW. kittel, Dan. kjedel, Goth. katils; all perh. fr. L. catill]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Jane: "Why, John, What a Litter Here! You've Thrown Things All Around!" is in the public domain. This text is taken from Farm Ballads, Project Gutenberg ebook #9500; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Will Carleton, Jane: "Why, John, What a Litter Here! You've Thrown Things All Around!", in Farm Ballads (1873), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9500, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carleton-farm-ballads/jane-why-john-what-a-litter-here-you-ve-thrown-things-all-ar.html, id L23263.
Form and metre
Jane: "Why, John, What a Litter Here! You've Thrown Things All Around!" is 7 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%).
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 -AA found · tooA · youA
- 2 AABB onA · johnA · trackB · backB
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Come, what's the matter now? and what 've you lost or found? | 13 | ···/˘········ |
| And here's my father here, a-waiting for supper, too; | 13 | ···/˘··/˘·/˘· |
| I've been a-riding with him--he's that "handsomer man than you." | 15 | ···/˘·········· |
| Ha! ha! Pa, take a seat, while I put the kettle on, | 13 | ··········/˘· |
| And get things ready for tea, and kiss my dear old John. | 13 | ···/˘········ |
| Why, John, you look so strange! Come, what has crossed your track? | 12 | ············ |
| I was only a-joking, you know; I'm willing to take it back. | 16 | ··/˘·/˘···/˘···· |
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.