Mother o' Mine
If I were hanged on the highest hill,Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!I know whose love would follow me still,Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!I know whose tears would come down to me,Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,I know whose prayers would make me whole,Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
Words in this poem
- damned a.
- Sentenced to punishment in a future state; condemned; consigned to perdition.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mother o' Mine 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, Mother o' Mine, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/mother-o-mine.html, id L20402.
Form and metre
Mother o' Mine is 11 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See 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 ABAB hillA · mineB · stillA · mineB
- 2 ABAB seaA · mineB · meA · mineB
- 3 AA- soulA · wholeA · mine
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If I were hanged on the highest hill, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| I know whose love would follow me still, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| If I were drowned in the deepest sea, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| I know whose tears would come down to me, | 9 | ········· |
| Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| If I were damned of body and soul, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| I know whose prayers would make me whole, | 8 | ········ |
| Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
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.