In Error
Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel.But, once in a way, there will come a dayWhen the colt must be taught to feelThe lash that falls, and the curb that galls, and the sting of the rowelled steel.
About this text
In Error 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, In Error, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/in-error.html, id L26158.
Form and metre
In Error is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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-AA heelA · day · feelA · steelA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel. | 12 | ···/˘····˘/· |
| But, once in a way, there will come a day | 10 | ·········· |
| When the colt must be taught to feel | 8 | ········ |
| The lash that falls, and the curb that galls, and the sting of the rowelled steel. | 17 | ··············/˘· |
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.