Concerning Kavin
When Kavin comes back from the barber,Although he no longer is young,One cheek is as soft as his heart,And the other as smooth as his tongue.
Words in this poem
- barber n.
- One whose occupation it is to shave or trim the beard, and to cut and dress the hair of his patrons. Barber's itch. See under Itch. [OE. barbour, OF. barbeor, F. barbier, as if fr. an assumed L. barbator, fr. barba beard. See 1st Barb.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Concerning Kavin is in the public domain. This text is taken from More Songs From Vagabondia, Project Gutenberg ebook #18007; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bliss Carman, Concerning Kavin, in More Songs from Vagabondia (1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18007, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carman-vagabondia/concerning-kavin.html, id L24694.
Form and metre
Concerning Kavin is 4 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 -A-A barber · youngA · heart · tongueA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When Kavin comes back from the barber, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Although he no longer is young, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| One cheek is as soft as his heart, | 8 | ········ |
| And the other as smooth as his tongue. | 9 | ··/˘····· |
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.