The Child’s First Grief
Oh! call my brother back to me!I cannot play alone;The summer comes with flower and bee--Where is my brother gone?
“The butterfly is glancing brightAcross the sunbeam’s track;I care not now to chase its flight--Oh! call my brother back!
“The flowers run wild--the flowers we sow’dAround our garden tree;Our vine is drooping with its load--Oh! call him back to me!”
“He would not hear thy voice, fair child!He may not come to thee;The face that once like spring-time smiled,On earth no more thou’lt see.
“A rose’s brief, bright life of joy,Such unto him was given:Go--thou must play alone, my boy!Thy brother is in heaven.”
“And has he left his birds and flowers;And must I call in vain?And through the long, long summer hours,Will he not come again?
“And by the brook and in the gladeAre all our wanderings o’er?Oh! while my brother with me play’d,Would I had loved him more!”
Words in this poem
- glancing a.
- Shooting, as light.
- sunbeam n.
- A beam or ray of the sun. [AS. sunnebeam.]
- glade n.
- An open passage through a wood; a grassy open or cleared space in a forest. [Prob. of Scand. origin, and akin to glad, a.; cf. also W. golead, goleuad, a lighting, illumination, fr. goleu light, clear, bright, goleu fwlch glade, lit., a ]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Child’s First Grief 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, The Child’s First Grief, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/the-child-s-first-grief.html, id L19570.
Form and metre
The Child’s First Grief is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 4 of its 7 stanzas. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in common measure.
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- meA · alone · beeA · gone
- 2 ABAB brightA · trackB · flightA · backB
- 3 ABAB sow'dA · treeB · loadA · meB
- 4 ABAB childA · theeB · smiledA · seeB
- 5 A-A- joyA · given · boyA · heaven
- 6 ABAB flowersA · vainB · hoursA · againB
- 7 A-A- gladeA · o'er · play'dA · more
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oh! call my brother back to me! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I cannot play alone; | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| The summer comes with flower and bee-- | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| Where is my brother gone? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| “The butterfly is glancing bright | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Across the sunbeam’s track; | 6 | ˘/·/·· |
| I care not now to chase its flight-- | 8 | ········ |
| Oh! call my brother back! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| “The flowers run wild--the flowers we sow’d | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| Around our garden tree; | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Our vine is drooping with its load-- | 9 | /˘··/˘··· |
| Oh! call him back to me!” | 6 | ······ |
| “He would not hear thy voice, fair child! | 8 | ········ |
| He may not come to thee; | 6 | ······ |
| The face that once like spring-time smiled, | 8 | ········ |
| On earth no more thou’lt see. | 6 | ······ |
| “A rose’s brief, bright life of joy, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Such unto him was given: | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Go--thou must play alone, my boy! | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Thy brother is in heaven.” | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| “And has he left his birds and flowers; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And must I call in vain? | 6 | ······ |
| And through the long, long summer hours, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Will he not come again? | 6 | ····˘/ |
| “And by the brook and in the glade | 8 | ········ |
| Are all our wanderings o’er? | 8 | ··/˘/˘˘· |
| Oh! while my brother with me play’d, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Would I had loved him more!” | 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.