Hi-Spy
Strange that the city thoroughfare,Noisy and bustling all the day,Should with the night renounce its care,And lend itself to children's play!
Oh, girls are girls, and boys are boys,And have been so since Abel's birth,And shall be so till dolls and toysAre with the children swept from earth.
The self-same sport that crowns the dayOf many a Syrian shepherd's son,Beguiles the little lads at playBy night in stately Babylon.
I hear their voices in the street,Yet 't is so different now from then!Come, brother! from your winding-sheet,And let us two be boys again!
Words in this poem
- thoroughfare n.
- A passage through; a passage from one street or opening to another; an unobstructed way open to the public; a public road; hence, a frequented street. [AS. þurhfaru.]
- bustling a.
- Agitated; noisy; tumultuous; characterized by confused activity; as, a bustling crowd.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hi-Spy 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, Hi-Spy, in A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9606, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-western-verse/hi-spy.html, id L24666.
Form and metre
Hi-Spy is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ABAB thoroughfareA · dayB · careA · playB
- 2 ABAB boysA · birthB · toysA · earthB
- 3 A-A- dayA · son · playA · babylon
- 4 ABAB streetA · thenB · sheetA · againB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Strange that the city thoroughfare, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Noisy and bustling all the day, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Should with the night renounce its care, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| And lend itself to children's play! | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Oh, girls are girls, and boys are boys, | 8 | ········ |
| And have been so since Abel's birth, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And shall be so till dolls and toys | 8 | ········ |
| Are with the children swept from earth. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The self-same sport that crowns the day | 8 | ········ |
| Of many a Syrian shepherd's son, | 8 | ·/·/˘/˘· |
| Beguiles the little lads at play | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| By night in stately Babylon. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| I hear their voices in the street, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Yet 't is so different now from then! | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Come, brother! from your winding-sheet, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And let us two be boys again! | 8 | ······˘/ |
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.