Cornish Lullaby
Out on the mountain over the town,All night long, all night long,The trolls go up and the trolls go down,Bearing their packs and crooning a song;And this is the song the hill-folk croon,As they trudge in the light of the misty moon,--This is ever their dolorous tune:"Gold, gold! ever more gold,--Bright red gold for dearie!"
Deep in the hill the yeoman delvesAll night long, all night long;None but the peering, furtive elvesSee his toil and hear his song;Merrily ever the cavern ringsAs merrily ever his pick he swings,And merrily ever this song he sings:"Gold, gold! ever more gold,--Bright red gold for dearie!"
Mother is rocking thy lowly bedAll night long, all night long,Happy to smooth thy curly headAnd to hold thy hand and to sing her song;'T is not of the hill-folk, dwarfed and old,Nor the song of the yeoman, stanch and bold,And the burden it beareth is not of gold;But it's "Love, love!--nothing but love,--Mother's love for dearie!"
Words in this poem
- folk 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.]
- croon v. i.
- To make a continuous hollow moan, as cattle do when in pain.
- trudge v. i.
- To walk or march with labor; to jog along; to move wearily. [Perhaps of Scand. origin, and originally meaning, to walk on snowshoes; cf. dial. Sw. truga, trudja, a snowshoe, Norw. truga, Icel. þruga.]
- dolorous a.
- Full of grief; sad; sorrowful; doleful; dismal; as, a dolorous object; dolorous discourses. [L. dolorosus, from dolor: cf. F. douloureux. See Dolor.]
- furtive a.
- Stolen; obtained or characterized by stealth; sly; secret; stealthy; as, a furtive look. Prior. [L. furtivus, fr. furtum theft, fr. fur thief, akin to ferre to bear: cf. F. furtif. See Fertile.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cornish Lullaby is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Little Book of Western Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #9606; 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, Cornish Lullaby, in A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9606, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-western-verse/cornish-lullaby.html, id L24650.
Form and metre
Cornish Lullaby is 27 lines in 3 stanzas of 9 lines each. 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 ABABCCC-- townA · longB · downA · songB · croonC · moonC · tuneC · gold · dearie
- 2 ABABCCC-- delvesA · longB · elvesA · songB · ringsC · swingsC · singsC · gold · dearie
- 3 ABABCCC-- bedA · longB · headA · songB · oldC · boldC · goldC · love · dearie
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Out on the mountain over the town, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| All night long, all night long, | 6 | ······ |
| The trolls go up and the trolls go down, | 9 | ········· |
| Bearing their packs and crooning a song; | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| And this is the song the hill-folk croon, | 9 | ········· |
| As they trudge in the light of the misty moon,-- | 11 | ········/˘· |
| This is ever their dolorous tune: | 8 | ··/·/˘˘· |
| "Gold, gold! ever more gold,-- | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Bright red gold for dearie!" | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Deep in the hill the yeoman delves | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| All night long, all night long; | 6 | ······ |
| None but the peering, furtive elves | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| See his toil and hear his song; | 7 | ······· |
| Merrily ever the cavern rings | 8 | /˘˘/·/˘· |
| As merrily ever his pick he swings, | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| And merrily ever this song he sings: | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| "Gold, gold! ever more gold,-- | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Bright red gold for dearie!" | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Mother is rocking thy lowly bed | 9 | /˘·/˘·/˘· |
| All night long, all night long, | 6 | ······ |
| Happy to smooth thy curly head | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| And to hold thy hand and to sing her song; | 10 | ·········· |
| 'T is not of the hill-folk, dwarfed and old, | 10 | ·········· |
| Nor the song of the yeoman, stanch and bold, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And the burden it beareth is not of gold; | 11 | ··/˘·/˘···· |
| But it's "Love, love!--nothing but love,-- | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Mother's love for dearie!" | 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.