Lines on a Child
Encinctured with a twine of leaves,That leafy twine his only dress!A lovely Boy was plucking fruits,By moonlight, in a wilderness.The moon was bright, the air was free,And fruits and flowers together grew,On many a shrub and many a tree:And all put on a gentle hue,Hanging in the shadowy airLike a picture rich and rare.It was a climate where, they say,The night is more belov'd than day.But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,That beauteous Boy to linger here?Alone, by night, a little child,In place so silent and so wild-Has he no friend, no loving mother near?
Words in this poem
- beauteous a.
- Full of beauty; beautiful; very handsome. [Mostly poetic] -- Beau"te*ous*ly, adv. --
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lines on a Child is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Coleridge, Project Gutenberg ebook #8208; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lines on a Child, in Poems of Coleridge (1796–1817), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8208, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coleridge-poems/lines-on-a-child.html, id L00374.
Form and metre
Lines on a Child is 17 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends 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 -A-ABCBCDDEEFGFFG leaves · dressA · fruits · wildernessA · freeB · grewC · treeB · hueC · airD · rareD · sayE · dayE · beguil'dF · hereG · childF · wildF · nearG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Encinctured with a twine of leaves, | 8 | ········ |
| That leafy twine his only dress! | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| A lovely Boy was plucking fruits, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| By moonlight, in a wilderness. | 8 | ·/···/˘˘ |
| The moon was bright, the air was free, | 8 | ········ |
| And fruits and flowers together grew, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| On many a shrub and many a tree: | 8 | ·/···/·· |
| And all put on a gentle hue, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Hanging in the shadowy air | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| Like a picture rich and rare. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| It was a climate where, they say, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The night is more belov'd than day. | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd, | 9 | ···/˘˘·˘/ |
| That beauteous Boy to linger here? | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| Alone, by night, a little child, | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| In place so silent and so wild- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Has he no friend, no loving mother near? | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
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.