Poor Little Children
Mother birdie stiff and cold,Puss has hushed the other's singing;Winds go whistling o'er the wold,--Empty nest in sport a-flinging.Poor little birdies!
Faithless shepherd strayed afar,Playful dog the gadflies catching;Wolves bound boldly o'er the bar,Not a friend the fold is watching--Poor little lambkins!
Father into prison fell,Mother begging through the parish;Baby's cot they, too, will sell,--Who will now feed, clothe and cherish?Poor little children!
Words in this poem
- birdie n.
- A pretty or dear little bird; -- a pet name.
- puss n.
- A cat; -- a fondling appellation. [Cf. D. poes, Ir. & Gael. pus.]
- 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.]
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- boldly adv.
- In a bold manner. [AS. bealdlice.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poor Little Children is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, Poor Little Children, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/poor-little-children.html, id L26794.
Form and metre
Poor Little Children is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
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 ABAB- coldA · singingB · woldA · flingingB · birdies
- 2 A-A-- afarA · catching · barA · watching · lambkins
- 3 ABAB- fellA · parishB · sellA · cherishB · children
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mother birdie stiff and cold, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Puss has hushed the other's singing; | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Winds go whistling o'er the wold,-- | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Empty nest in sport a-flinging. | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Poor little birdies! | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Faithless shepherd strayed afar, | 7 | /˘/˘·˘/ |
| Playful dog the gadflies catching; | 8 | /˘··/·/˘ |
| Wolves bound boldly o'er the bar, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Not a friend the fold is watching-- | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Poor little lambkins! | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Father into prison fell, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Mother begging through the parish; | 8 | /˘/˘··/˘ |
| Baby's cot they, too, will sell,-- | 7 | /˘····· |
| Who will now feed, clothe and cherish? | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Poor little children! | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
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.