To Mary Field French
A dying mother gave to youHer child a many years ago;How in your gracious love he grew,You know, dear, patient heart, you know.
The mother's child you fostered thenSalutes you now and bids you takeThese little children of his penAnd love them for the author's sake.
To you I dedicate this book,And, as you read it line by line,Upon its faults as kindly lookAs you have always looked on mine.
Tardy the offering is and weak;--Yet were I happy if I knewThese children had the power to speakMy love and gratitude to you.
About this text
To Mary Field French 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, To Mary Field French, in A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9606, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-western-verse/to-mary-field-french.html, id L24619.
Form and metre
To Mary Field French is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 youA · agoB · grewA · knowB
- 2 ABAB thenA · takeB · penA · sakeB
- 3 ABAB bookA · lineB · lookA · mineB
- 4 ABAB weakA · knewB · speakA · youB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A dying mother gave to you | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Her child a many years ago; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| How in your gracious love he grew, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| You know, dear, patient heart, you know. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The mother's child you fostered then | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Salutes you now and bids you take | 8 | ˘/······ |
| These little children of his pen | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And love them for the author's sake. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To you I dedicate this book, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And, as you read it line by line, | 8 | ········ |
| Upon its faults as kindly look | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| As you have always looked on mine. | 8 | ···/···· |
| Tardy the offering is and weak;-- | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Yet were I happy if I knew | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| These children had the power to speak | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| My love and gratitude to you. | 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.