Giles
"No, that arn't it, I tell 'ee flat;I'ze bring a worser case nor that!""Last Friday week, I takes a startTo Reading, with our horse and cart;Well, when I'ze set the 'taters down,I meets a crony at the Crown;And what betwixt the ale and Tom,It's dark afore I starts for home;So whipping hard, by long and late,At last we reaches nigh the gate,And, sure enough, there Master stand,A lantern flaring in his hand,--'Why, Giles,' says he, 'what's that 'un thear?Yond' chestnut horse bean't my bay mear!He bean't not worth a leg o' Bess!'There's Hagricultural Distress!"
Words in this poem
- betwixt prep.
- In the space which separates; between. [OE. betwix, bitwix, rarely bitwixt, AS. betweox, betweohs, betweoh, betwih; pref. be- by + a form fr. AS. twa two. See Between.]
- afore prep.
- Before (in all its senses).
- mear n.
- A boundary. See Mere.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Giles is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hood, Giles, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/giles.html, id L20174.
Form and metre
Giles is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 88% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBCC--DDEEFFGG flatA · thatA · startB · cartB · downC · crownC · tom · home · lateD · gateD · standE · handE · thearF · mearF · bessG · distressG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "No, that arn't it, I tell 'ee flat; | 8 | ········ |
| I'ze bring a worser case nor that!" | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| "Last Friday week, I takes a start | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| To Reading, with our horse and cart; | 8 | ·/˘·/··· |
| Well, when I'ze set the 'taters down, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I meets a crony at the Crown; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And what betwixt the ale and Tom, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| It's dark afore I starts for home; | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| So whipping hard, by long and late, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| At last we reaches nigh the gate, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And, sure enough, there Master stand, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| A lantern flaring in his hand,-- | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| 'Why, Giles,' says he, 'what's that 'un thear? | 8 | ········ |
| Yond' chestnut horse bean't my bay mear! | 8 | ·/······ |
| He bean't not worth a leg o' Bess!' | 8 | ········ |
| There's Hagricultural Distress!" | 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.