Dandelions
Welcome children of the Spring,In your garbs of green and gold,Lifting up your sun-crowned headsOn the verdant plain and wold.
As a bright and joyous troopFrom the breast of earth ye cameFair and lovely are your cheeks,With sun-kisses all aflame.
In the dusty streets and lanes,Where the lowly children play,There as gentle friends ye smile,Making brighter life's highway
Dewdrops and the morning sun,Weave your garments fair and bright,And we welcome you to-dayAs the children of the light.
Children of the earth and sun.We are slow to understandAll the richness of the giftsFlowing from our Father's hand.
Words in this poem
- wold n.
- A wood; a forest. [OE. wold, wald, AS. weald, wald, a wood, forest; akin to OFries. & OS. wald, D. woud, G. wald, Icel. völlr, a field, and probably to Gr. va a garden, inclosure.]
- aflame adv.
- Inflames; glowing with light or passion; ablaze. G. Eliot. [Pref. a- + flame.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Dandelions is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #679; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Dandelions, in Poems (1854–1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #679, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/harper-poems/dandelions.html, id L10550.
Form and metre
Dandelions is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 35% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 spring · goldA · heads · woldA
- 2 -A-A troop · cameA · cheeks · aflameA
- 3 -A-A lanes · playA · smile · highwayA
- 4 -A-A sun · brightA · day · lightA
- 5 -A-A sun · understandA · gifts · handA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome children of the Spring, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| In your garbs of green and gold, | 7 | ······· |
| Lifting up your sun-crowned heads | 8 | /˘····˘· |
| On the verdant plain and wold. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| As a bright and joyous troop | 7 | ····/˘· |
| From the breast of earth ye came | 7 | ······· |
| Fair and lovely are your cheeks, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| With sun-kisses all aflame. | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| In the dusty streets and lanes, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Where the lowly children play, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| There as gentle friends ye smile, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Making brighter life's highway | 7 | /˘/˘·/· |
| Dewdrops and the morning sun, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Weave your garments fair and bright, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And we welcome you to-day | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| As the children of the light. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Children of the earth and sun. | 7 | /˘····· |
| We are slow to understand | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| All the richness of the gifts | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Flowing from our Father's hand. | 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.