On My Mother’s Birthday: Written at the Age of Eight
Clad in all their brightest green,This day the verdant fields are seen;The tuneful birds begin their lay,To celebrate thy natal day.
The breeze is still, the sea is calm,And the whole scene combines to charm;The flowers revive, this charming May,Because it is thy natal day.
The sky is blue, the day serene,And only pleasure now is seen;The rose, the pink, the tulip gay,Combine to bless thy natal day.
Words in this poem
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- tuneful a.
- Harmonious; melodious; musical; as, tuneful notes.
- natal a.
- Of or pertaining to one's birth; accompying or dating from one's birth; native. [L. natalis, fr. natus, p.p. of nasci to be born: cf. F. natal. See Nation, and cf. Noel.]
- tulip n.
- Any plant of the liliaceous genus Tulipa. Many varieties are cultivated for their beautiful, often variegated flowers. Tulip tree. [F. tulipe, OF. also tulipan, It. tulipano, tulipa, from Turk. tulbend, dulbend, literally, a turban, Per. dulband; -- so called from the resemblance of the form]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On My Mother’s Birthday: Written at the Age of Eight is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Felicia Hemans, Project Gutenberg ebook #66785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Felicia Hemans, On My Mother’s Birthday: Written at the Age of Eight, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/on-my-mother-s-birthday-written-at-the-age-of-eight.html, id L13409.
Form and metre
On My Mother’s Birthday: Written at the Age of Eight is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
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 AABB greenA · seenA · layB · dayB
- 2 --AA calm · charm · mayA · dayA
- 3 AABB sereneA · seenA · gayB · dayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Clad in all their brightest green, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| This day the verdant fields are seen; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The tuneful birds begin their lay, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| To celebrate thy natal day. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The breeze is still, the sea is calm, | 8 | ········ |
| And the whole scene combines to charm; | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| The flowers revive, this charming May, | 9 | ·/˘˘/·/˘· |
| Because it is thy natal day. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The sky is blue, the day serene, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And only pleasure now is seen; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The rose, the pink, the tulip gay, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Combine to bless thy natal day. | 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.