Childish Griefs
Softened by Time's consummate plush,How sleek the woe appearsThat threatened childhood's citadelAnd undermined the years!
Bisected now by bleaker griefs,We envy the despairThat devastated childhood's realm,So easy to repair.
Words in this poem
- plush n.
- A textile fabric with a nap or shag on one side, longer and softer than the nap of velvet. [F. pluche, peluche (cf. It. peluzzo), fr. L. pilus hair. See pile hair, and cf. Peruke.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Childish Griefs is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, Childish Griefs, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/childish-griefs.html, id L03768.
Form and metre
Childish Griefs is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 plush · appearsA · citadel · yearsA
- 2 -A-A griefs · despairA · realm · repairA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Softened by Time's consummate plush, | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| How sleek the woe appears | 6 | ····˘/ |
| That threatened childhood's citadel | 8 | ·/˘/·/˘· |
| And undermined the years! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Bisected now by bleaker griefs, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| We envy the despair | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| That devastated childhood's realm, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| So easy to repair. | 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.