His Queen
I've journeyed East, I've journeyed West,And fair Italia's fields I've seen;But I declareNone can compareWith thee, my rose-crowned Pasadene.
Come, now, who is this PasadeneThat such a whirl of praises warrant?And is a roseHer only clo'es?Oh, fie upon you, Billy Florence!
Ah, no; that's your poetic wayOf turning loose your rhythmic torrents--This PasadeneIs not your queen--We know you know we know it, Florence!
So sing your songs of women folks--We'll read without the least abhorrence,Because we knowThrough weal and woeYour queen is Mrs. Billy Florence!
Words in this poem
- billy n.
- A club; esp., a policeman's club.
- rhythmic a.
- Pertaining to, or of the nature of, rhythm DAy and night I worked my rhythmic thought. Mrs. Browning. [Gr. rhythmicus, F. rhythmique.]
- folks n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
His Queen is in the public domain. This text is taken from Hoosier Lyrics, Project Gutenberg ebook #36150; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eugene Field, His Queen, in Hoosier Lyrics (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36150, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-poems/his-queen.html, id L11581.
Form and metre
His Queen is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.7 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 40% 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 --AA- west · seen · declareA · compareA · pasadene
- 2 --AA- pasadene · warrant · roseA · clo'esA · florence
- 4 -ABBA folks · abhorrenceA · knowB · woeB · florenceA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I've journeyed East, I've journeyed West, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And fair Italia's fields I've seen; | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| But I declare | 4 | ··˘/ |
| None can compare | 4 | ··˘/ |
| With thee, my rose-crowned Pasadene. | 8 | ········ |
| Come, now, who is this Pasadene | 8 | ········ |
| That such a whirl of praises warrant? | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| And is a rose | 4 | ···· |
| Her only clo'es? | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Oh, fie upon you, Billy Florence! | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Ah, no; that's your poetic way | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Of turning loose your rhythmic torrents-- | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| This Pasadene | 4 | ···· |
| Is not your queen-- | 4 | ···· |
| We know you know we know it, Florence! | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| So sing your songs of women folks-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| We'll read without the least abhorrence, | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| Because we know | 4 | ···· |
| Through weal and woe | 4 | ···· |
| Your queen is Mrs. Billy Florence! | 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.