Have you got a brook in your little heart
Have you got a brook in your little heart,Where bashful flowers blow,And blushing birds go down to drink,And shadows tremble so?
And nobody knows, so still it flows,That any brook is there;And yet your little draught of lifeIs daily drunken there.
Then look out for the little brook in March,When the rivers overflow,And the snows come hurrying from the hills,And the bridges often go.
And later, in August it may be,When the meadows parching lie,Beware, lest this little brook of lifeSome burning noon go dry!
Words in this poem
- bashful a.
- Abashed; daunted; dismayed. [See Bash.]
- nobody n.
- No person; no one; not anybody. [No, a. + body.]
- parching a.
- Scorching; burning; drying.
- beware v. t.
- To avoid; to take care of; to have a care for.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Have you got a brook in your little heart 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, Have you got a brook in your little heart, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/have-you-got-a-brook-in-your-little-heart.html, id L18898.
Form and metre
Have you got a brook in your little heart is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 heart · blowA · drink · soA
- 2 -A-A flows · thereA · life · thereA
- 3 -A-A march · overflowA · hills · goA
- 4 AA-A beA · lieA · life · dryA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Have you got a brook in your little heart, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Where bashful flowers blow, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| And blushing birds go down to drink, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And shadows tremble so? | 6 | ·/·/˘· |
| And nobody knows, so still it flows, | 9 | ·/······· |
| That any brook is there; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And yet your little draught of life | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Is daily drunken there. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Then look out for the little brook in March, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| When the rivers overflow, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| And the snows come hurrying from the hills, | 10 | ····/˘˘··· |
| And the bridges often go. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| And later, in August it may be, | 9 | ·/˘·/˘··· |
| When the meadows parching lie, | 7 | ··/·/˘· |
| Beware, lest this little brook of life | 9 | ˘/··/˘··· |
| Some burning noon go dry! | 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.