"'Tis a Hairy Sort of Night for a Man to Face and Fight"
For a man to face and fight;And the wind is blowin'--Hang it, Jimmy, bring another light!
Ah! 'twas you, then, Johnny Rich,Yelling out at such a pitch,For a decent man to help you, while you fell into the ditch:'Tisn't quite the thing to say,But we ought to've let you lay,While your drunken carcass died a-drinkin' water any way.
And to see you on my floor,And to hear the way you snore,Now we've lugged you under shelter, and the danger all is o'er;And you lie there, quite resigned,
Words in this poem
- jimmy n.
- A short crowbar used by burglars in breaking open doors. [Cf. Jemmy.]
- johnny n.
- A familiar diminutive of John.
- ought p. p.
- Was or were under obligation to pay; owed. [Orig. the preterit of the verb to owe. OE. oughte, aughte, ahte, AS. ahte. sq. root110. See Owe.]
- carcass n.
- A dead body, whether of man or beast; a corpse; now commonly the dead body of a beast. [F. carcasse, fr. It. carcassa, fr. L. caro flesh + capsa chest, box, case. Cf. Carnal, Case a sheath.]
- snore v. i.
- To breathe with a rough, hoarse, nasal voice in sleep. [OE. snoren, AS. snora a snoring; akin to LG. snoren, snorken, snurken, to snore, D. snorken, G. schnarchen to snore, schnarren to rattle, MHG. snarren, Sw. snar]
- resigned a.
- Submissive; yielding; not disposed to resist or murmur.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"'Tis a Hairy Sort of Night for a Man to Face and Fight" 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, "'Tis a Hairy Sort of Night for a Man to Face and Fight", in Farm Ballads (1873), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9500, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carleton-farm-ballads/tis-a-hairy-sort-of-night-for-a-man-to-face-and-fight.html, id L23266.
Form and metre
"'Tis a Hairy Sort of Night for a Man to Face and Fight" is 12 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AA fightA · lightA
- 2 AAABBB richA · pitchA · ditchA · sayB · layB · wayB
- 3 AA-- floorA · snoreA · o'er · resigned
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 |
|---|---|---|
| For a man to face and fight; | 7 | ······· |
| And the wind is blowin'--Hang it, Jimmy, bring another light! | 15 | ········/˘·˘/˘· |
| Ah! 'twas you, then, Johnny Rich, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Yelling out at such a pitch, | 7 | /˘····· |
| For a decent man to help you, while you fell into the ditch: | 15 | ··/˘··········· |
| 'Tisn't quite the thing to say, | 6 | ······ |
| But we ought to've let you lay, | 7 | ······· |
| While your drunken carcass died a-drinkin' water any way. | 15 | ··/˘/˘····/˘/˘· |
| And to see you on my floor, | 7 | ······· |
| And to hear the way you snore, | 7 | ······· |
| Now we've lugged you under shelter, and the danger all is o'er; | 15 | ······/˘··/˘··· |
| And you lie there, quite resigned, | 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.