All the Beasts Together
Children of the Camp are we,Serving each in his degree;Children of the yoke and goad,Pack and harness, pad and load.See our line across the plain.Like a heel-rope bent again,Beaching, writhing, rolling far.Sweeping all away to war!While the men that walk beside,Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed,Cannot tell why we or theyMarch and suffer day by day.Children of the Camp are we,Serving each in hiss degree;Children of the yoke and goad,Pack and harness, pad and load.
About this text
All the Beasts Together is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, All the Beasts Together, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/all-the-beasts-together.html, id L20364.
Form and metre
All the Beasts Together is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 88% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AABBCC--DDEEAABB weA · degreeA · goadB · loadB · plainC · againC · far · war · besideD · eyedD · theyE · dayE · weA · degreeA · goadB · loadB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Children of the Camp are we, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Serving each in his degree; | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Children of the yoke and goad, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Pack and harness, pad and load. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| See our line across the plain. | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| Like a heel-rope bent again, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Beaching, writhing, rolling far. | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| Sweeping all away to war! | 7 | /˘·˘/·· |
| While the men that walk beside, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed, | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| Cannot tell why we or they | 7 | /˘····· |
| March and suffer day by day. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Children of the Camp are we, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Serving each in hiss degree; | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Children of the yoke and goad, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Pack and harness, pad and load. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.